Thursday, October 18, 2012

MOVIE REVIEW: Red Lights [2012]

I'm not a fan of horror movies anymore, yet decided to participate in the Peril on the Screen component of the R.I.P. VII event hosted by Carl V. of Stainless Steel Droppings. After scrolling through countless horror and thriller movies on Netflix recently, my husband and I agreed on Red Lights, a 2012 psychological thriller directed by Rodrigo Cortéz starring Sigourney Weaver, Cillian Murphy and Robert De Niro. Neither of us were familiar with this film prior to spotting it on Netflix, but we figured it had to be decent in light of the casting, right? Eh. Not so much.

Dr. Margaret Matheson [Sigourney Weaver] is a research psychologist who along with her assistant physicist Tom Buckley [Cillian Murphy], work to debunk fraudulent psychic phenomena, revealing the science behind the tricks that frauds use to deceive the public. Thirty years ago, world renowned psychic Simon Silver [Robert De Niro] went into reclusive "retirement" after his biggest critic died at one of his shows. Now Silver has come out of retirement and is once again luring crowds of believers to his shows, tons of media attention as well as the attention of psychic researchers. Matheson, who is normally aggressive in her quest to discredit the biggest fakes including Silver, wants nothing to do with Silver and is determined to stay away from him. Her assistant Tom Buckley feels otherwise and is determined to reveal Silver as a fraud, which quickly becomes a dangerous and deadly task.

There were moments of tension, suspense and unexplained phenomenon in this film, but I kept expecting a build up of something big and mysterious that just never quite got there. The ending was seriously anticlimactic. Not only was the resolution of the conflict very flimsy, but the denouement wasn't even exciting. No special effects or dramatic music to even help it along some. A single episode of the X-Files is more engaging than this film.

I give Red Lights 2 out of 5 stars.

GRADE: C-


6 comments:

  1. Aww, anti-climatic endings are the worse! LOL
    Maybe I should just watch some X-Files :D I used to love that show.

    This movie sounds like the kind you watch on TV at two am when there is nothing else on :P

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  2. I would much rather watch the X-Files than a horror movie. Strangely enough I found myself watching some weird horror movie the other night about a soul jumping from one person to another to kill someone. It was..... creepy. You picked a good time of the year to watch one, though! *g*

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  3. Oh that's too bad, Christine. I don't like horror movies either... and I'm surprised that such prominent actors would play in this one.

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  4. Alex, YES! This is a good movie to watch when you're bored and have nothing better to do.

    Brandy, I love randomly discovering something to watch like you did with that soul jumping movie. Although I'm not fond of being creeped out anymore. I don't know why! I've become such a baby about it, too. lol!

    nath, in truth, Red Lights isn't a horror movie. Just a psychological thriller. I can handle those better, but not as much if the plot involves kids. It was surprising to find this was a flop considering the actors. Who would have guessed?

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  5. If I remember correctly, Novia @ Polychrome Interest also reviewed this movie for R.I.P. VII. Despite the excellent cast, it feels like a let down. I mean, some X-files episodes are downright boring, so it can't be good o_O

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  6. Chinoiseries, Oh I'll have to look for Novia's review of this movie. I scrolled through all those reviews linked there, but there were SO many, it's not surprising I missed it.

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