Red Lights

Red Lights follows two researchers who make a living exposing people who claim to have supernatural abilities. Margaret Matheson, a psychologist who has spent her career debunking such claims, works alongside her assistant Tom Buckley, and together they investigate a range of phenomena and show them to be tricks. Their work is unsettled by the return of Simon Silver, a blind mentalist who vanished from public life for three decades and now draws huge audiences again. Tom becomes increasingly absorbed by Silver and determined to find out how his performances work, while Margaret warns him about the risk of getting close to the man.

Rodrigo Cortés wrote and directed the film, which sits between Buried and Down a Dark Hall in the five features he has directed. Cillian Murphy plays Tom, with Sigourney Weaver as Margaret, Robert De Niro as Simon Silver, and supporting turns from Elizabeth Olsen, Toby Jones and Joely Richardson. It was a co-production between Spain and the United States, made for about 14 million dollars and taking in roughly the same amount worldwide, so it did not recoup much beyond its cost. On IMDb and TMDB, audience scores sit at 6.2 out of 10 from around 1,400 votes on TMDB, while a film critics' rating of 4.9 out of 10 from 94 reviews is noticeably lower, indicating that reviewers were harder on it than general viewers.