Red Lights

This week's movie rental was Red Lights ...

a 2012 Spanish-American film, written and directed by Rodrigo Cortés, and starring Robert De Niro, Sigourney Weaver, Cillian Murphy, Toby Jones and Leonardo Sbaraglia. The film contains elements of both the thriller and horror genres. The film opens with two primary characters: a university academic who also engages in paranormal investigation work, Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver); and her assistant in both areas, Tom Buckley (Cillian Murphy), who is also a talented physics academic. The audience is provided with an insight into the world of the opening section's primary characters while concurrently observing the public reemergence of a fictional psychic, Simon Silver (Robert De Niro).

- Weaver's character teaching her class

- Murphy's character co-teaches the class

I liked the beginning of the film - the academic setting, the technical details of how the two professors detected paranormal frauds, the revelations of their past personal griefs, and the creepy reemergence of "the one that got away" (Silver). The acting was good, especially Weaver and Murphy. And the questions asked by the film - what do you belueve and why - are good questions. But I think the movie went a bit downhill towards the end, resorting to horror cliches (what is it with scary novies and dead birds - ick), and the ending seemed a bit weak. Still, overall I liked the movie.

Roger Ebert gave the R rated movie 2.5 stars in his review.