Film review: Red Lights (15)

SEEING is deceiving. Look beyond the obvious and you might glimpse writer-director Rodrigo Cortes’s sleights of hand in this intriguing thriller, which follows two paranormal investigators as they debunk fraudulent mediums, mind readers and ghost hunters through the appliance of rigorous science.

Red Lights promises far more than it delivers, turning a narrative screw for the opening 45 minutes that teasingly hints at invisible, dark forces at work in a bustling metropolis.

When one exhausted homeowner tells the paranormal investigators, “You can’t begin to imagine what’s going on here,” he might as well be speaking to us.

Savvy audiences who enthusiastically devoured The Sixth Sense and its supernatural kin will enjoy piecing together the puzzle, searching for clues in nervous glances and ominous silences between the characters.

Once Cortes reveals his elaborate and impressively grand design, incredulity supplants fascination, culminating in an oddly underwhelming big reveal that plays on our perceptions.

Tension of the first half dissipates as Cortes engineers his earth-shattering finale, replete with flashbacks to earlier scenes that slyly foretold of the destruction to come.

Rating: ***