Expert paranormal investigator Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver) and her chief assistant Tom Buckley (Cilian Murphy) are so good at debunking the "paranormal" that they teach classes to university students. But when legendary psychic Simon Silver (Robert De Niro) resurfaces after a long absence, the two of them find their hands full trying to set the record straight about his actual powers.

Red Lights is an exploration of faith and doubt, but it's also a thriller that holds unspoken dangers over the audience's head. Silver is blind, adding to the deference that others show him, but the-truth-is-out-there motif that we see in FOX's television shows The X-Files and Bones dominates the general movement here. Sure, some of it is funny (and clever) as the two debunk different hoaxes, but there's a darkness surrounding the death of one of Silver's previous opponents that parallels the death of Matheson early on.

We're gradually let in on the reasons behind the skepticism of our two protagonists. Matheson won't let her son (stuck in a coma for quite some time) go because she doesn't believe there's anything after death, and that would mean giving up on her son. She disbelieves in the paranormal, and hints at a loss of faith after her son entered the coma. Her pain and frustration are direct causes of her mindset in the present. Pain leads to anger and anger leads to hate (Yoda said something like that once). On the other side, Silver has co-opted religious terms ("you are healed, go in peace") and his ability to whip the audience into a "religious frenzy" is practiced, patterned, and no less destructive than some preachers'.

The end result will... surprise you, and keep you asking questions about your own faith and doubts. It's not cut and dry, and maybe the two can't exist without the other. Rodrigo Cortés' last film, Buried, kept the unflinching camera on Ryan Reynolds in a box, waiting to be rescued or to die. In Red Lights, we know that we're being shown the scene behind the curtain, but we're not sure if there's another curtain beyond that, too.