Movies
Red Lights
“What’s most frustrating about Red Lights is that it’s one of those movies that seems like it’s going to get better at any given second. The performances are great; you can tell the entire cast believes in this thing. But ultimately, the movie serves as the perfect example of an excellent idea, poorly executed.”
Buried was one of my favorite films of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, a riveting white-knuckler
that left me drooling for another Rodrigo Cortes movie. I was an immediate fan. When Red Lights was announced as Cortes’ next project, the high-powered cast (Cillian Murphy! Sigourney Weaver!
Robert DeNiro!) and the high-concept premise (Paranormal Investigators Bust Murderous Psychic!)
sounded like a potent combination. On paper, at least. But while Buried had its Sundance audience
squirming in suspense, Red Lights left them squirming in outright boredom.
The problem certainly isn’t with the concept, with is pretty damn cool. Weaver and Murphy play
university doctors out to debunk any paranormal fakers, and when a reclusive psychic (DeNiro) returns to
the public eye after a 30-year absence, they are compelled to investigate his new tactics. Now that sounds
like a movie I’d like to see. Unfortunately, that’s not the movie writer/director Rodrigo Cortes chose to
make.
Although DeNiro is established as the villain early on, most of Red Lights is devoted to developing
the interpersonal relationships of the characters, and DeNiro is repeatedly pushed to the background.
Instead of focusing on his script’s most compelling element, Cortes chooses to pump his movie full of
episodic moments straight out of an amateur Ghostbusters sequel . Weaver and Murphy bust a
table-rocking psychic, a manipulative healer, an ESP faker, etc. Every once in a while a line of dialogue
will remind the audience that the evil DeNiro is the focus of the film, but it doesn’t take long for Cortes
to drift back to boring background shit involving his characters. We learn that Sigourney Weaver’s son
is on life support, Cillian Murphy is crushing on a student (Elizabeth Olson: super-cute, as always, but
given literally NOTHING to do here)––oh, and don‘t forget, eventually they’ll get around to taking down
DeNiro. Eventually.
What’s most frustrating about Red Lights is that it’s one of those movies that seems like it’s going
to get better at any given second. The performances are great; you can tell the entire cast believes
in this thing. But ultimately, the movie serves as the perfect example of an excellent idea, poorly executed.
Even the final twist is poorly conceived, packing far less of a punch than Cortes probably intended––sort of
an “anti-payoff”, in the words of one colleague. Occasionally posing as a horror movie, Red Light’s melodrama is sometimes goosed with a gratingly loud sound sting, but don’t let that fool you. Rather
than scare, Cortes is just looking to wake up his dozing audience.
A contemporary reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West: Reanimator is on the way, and Deadline has unveiled the first look at the new Herbert West and the pathologist drawn to his orbit.
Adam Simon (The Haunting in Connecticut, “Salem”) and Tim Metcalfe (The Haunting in Connecticut, Kalifornia) penned the script. The original screenplay and storyline come from Jade Sandberg Wallace.
Michael Grossman (“The Originals”, “Pretty Little Liars”) directs.
The new images introduce star Joseph Morgan (“Vampire Diaries“), who plays “brilliant surgeon and scientist Herbert West, who is obsessed with creating a serum to reanimate the dead.” Katie Cassidy (Speed Demon) stars opposite as the pathologist with a troubled past who joins his efforts.
Together, they prove that conquering death may be the ultimate sin against life itself.
The film’s official synopsis: “As a child, Herbert West watches his father Peter reanimate his dead mother Judith in a secret basement lab — only for Judith to mortally wound Peter and nearly kill Herbert before Peter shoots her. The trauma leaves its mark on Herbert, but so does one final image: his mother’s finger, twitching after death. Thirty years later, Herbert West is a brilliant, secretive surgeon still chasing his father’s obsession.
“Pathologist Kate Locke arrives in town and is drawn into his orbit — first through a spark at a hospital fundraiser, then through his secret lab, where he reveals a serum capable of reanimating severed tissue. Kate, hiding a dark past of her own, is thrilled rather than horrified, and moves into West’s mansion to work alongside him. Their early experiments on a cadaver succeed only briefly. West concludes that dead tissue is the problem — they need something fresher.”
Supporting cast includes Scott Aiello, Ira J Amyx, Randall Newsome, Emma Reinagal, James D. Bryce, Kathryn A Bentley, Jack Lancaster, Amy Holland Pennell, John Pierson, Mindy Shaw, Eric Dean White, Tristan Wilder Hallet, Adrienne Lamping, Aaron Crippen, and Drew Patterson.
Makeup artist Jeff Lewis (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and cousin Roger Lewis are heading the production via their newly established Woodlake Entertainment.
Lovecraft’s short story, first serialized in Home Brew magazine in 1922, is the first among his works to mention the fictional Miskatonic University. It was most famously adapted into a 1985 horror movie from Stuart Gordon, starring Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West.
Herbert West: Reanimator is set in Alton, Illinois, where production is now underway.
Herbert West: Reanimator. Photo credit: Matt Lief Anderson
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