Red Lights

I don't remember how I found Red Lights - probably on a list of horror movies coming out soon somewhere. It's a decent, if slow, thriller, and very European.

In Red Lights, Dr. Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver) and her partner, Tom Buckley (Cillian Murphy) are paranormal investigators who spend their time visiting supposed paranormal phenomenon & locations to weed out frauds using what Matheson calls "Red Lights," or supernatural trickery. The story opens with them visiting a haunted home only to debunk it rather quickly after a seance and that leads to the main plot - is the psychic Simon Silver (Robert De Niro) the real deal or not? He's been in hiding for years, and now has appeared to do a few shows before retirement. Buckley is anxious to investigate and Matheson is curiously not interested. There's a little bit of a break between the two as Buckley struggles with the whys and goes off on his own, only to be faced with many curious events - birds smashing in to windows, electronics going haywire, etc. Eventually, Silver consents to testing, and soon the truth comes out. I won't tell you what it is, because it was a surprise to me. (There could be reasons for that though...as I had trouble keeping interested in the plot.)

This movie didn't really hold my attention until the end. I don't know if it was just too slow, or too disjointed, or what, but I really wasn't engrossed until it got into the last 30 minutes or so. Then I was riveted. So much so that I rewound the movie to catch something when JudoMaster started talking. Before that, it was sort of like blah blah, debunk, blah, Elizabeth Olsen, blah. Maybe I just expected a faster pace? Maybe they cut out too much in editing? I don't know. I'd like to say it was worth sitting through the first hour to get to the last 30 minutes, but I don't know that it was. It had its moments, but the revelation at the end wasn't terribly shocking. Although the special effects were good, and Hello - Sigourney Weaver, Robert De Niro, Cillian Murphy, and Elizabeth Olsen, well, it just wasn't enough.

I don't mean for you to not see it, but I don't know that I can recommend it as much as say, The Orphanage or House of Voices - two other European horror flicks that are spooky and able to keep my attention through out. It wasn't bad, but it really wasn't great either.

Rating: 3 Purrrs for all of that star power