Red Lights is a 2012 psychological supernatural thriller film written, directed, produced and edited by Rodrigo Cortés and starring Cillian Murphy, Sigourney Weaver, Robert De Niro, Toby Jones, Joely Richardson, and Elizabeth Olsen. The plot focuses on a physicist (Murphy) and a university psychology professor (Weaver), both of whom specialise in debunking supernatural phenomena, and their attempt at discrediting a renowned psychic (De Niro) whose greatest critic mysteriously died 30 years prior.
The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2012, and received a limited release in the United States on 13 July 2012.
Plot
University professor and psychologist Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver) and her assistant Tom Buckley (Cillian Murphy), a physicist, investigates claims of paranormal phenomena. They observe a seance and later debunk the tricks used by the pretend psychic. At the same time, famous blind psychic Simon Silver (Robert De Niro) announces he will begin performing again. Silver spent decades away from the limelight after his most vocal skeptical critic died suddenly while confronting Silver at one of his performances. The news garners lots of media attention and Silver begins making television appearances to promote his shows.
Buckley suggests that he and Matheson, along with fellow skeptic and eager student Sally Owen (Elizabeth Olsen) go after Silver, but Matheson is against the idea. Instead, they monitor the performance of a "faith healer" and former student of Silver's and, by using sophisticated surveillance equipment, are able to expose him as a fraud who uses a earpiece and is fed information from assistants elsewhere in the theater. Buckley suggests they go after Silver next but Matheson again rebuffs him, admitting that years prior she had tried to expose Silver only to be left shaken when Silver seemed to contact her comatose son. Frustrated, Buckley attempts to monitor Silver's show on his own the with the same equipment as before, but his attempt is immediately noticed by Silver and the equipment mysteriously breaks down. Buckley returns to Matheson only to find her collapsed on the floor. She dies shortly after from a chronic vascular condition.
Following Matheson's death, Buckley becomes increasingly obsessed with investigating Silver, but his efforts are interrupted by a series of seemingly inexplicable events. Electronic devices explode, dead birds appear, and Buckley's laboratory is vandalized. As the media frenzy continues, Silver agrees to participate in an investigation proposed by an academic from the same university that employed Matheson even though she is shown earlier pointing out flaws in their testing methods. Buckley joins the observation team but is not allowed to participate in the tests and can only review recorded footage with his assistants. Though most tests yield inconclusive results, one using two isolation booths to attempt to record telepathy shows Silver succeeding at a rate far beyond random chance. The results of the testing seem to confirm Silver has genuine psychic powers and are set to be published just prior to his final show.
An increasingly aggitated Buckley attends the show while his assistants continue to review the footage of Silver's testing. After being spotted in the crowd, Buckley is attacked by one of Silver's assistants while in the bathroom. At the same time, Owen discovers Silver and the person in the other isolation booth were wearing perfectly synchronized watches and using a pattern based on the time to cheat the telepathy test. Additionally, she determines that Silver is faking his blindness as he never touches his watch to check the time.
Bloodied and pushed to his limit, Buckley storms the auditorium to confront Silver. As the two argue more electrical disturbances occur and the stage begins to shake, but Silver is confused by the occurrences and it is revealed Buckley is and always has been the one causing them. Buckley reveals he actually does possess paranormal abilities as has been working as a debunker in hopes of finding someone else like him or another explanation. An assistant tries to pull Silver off stage but he is too dumbfounded and just keeps yelling at Buckley. Buckley in turn tosses a coin at Silver's face, which he instinctively catches, revealing to the audience that he can see.