What did YOU think of the paranormal movie 'Red Lights'?

I watched a really cool movie earlier today called “Red Lights” and if you’re interested in the paranormal, you’ll probably like this movie.

Rated R, this 113-minute long movie was written and directed by Rodrigo Cortes and was released in the U.S. on July 13, 2012. The movie features an all-star cast that included Cillian Murphy, Robert De Niro, Sigourney Weaver, Elizabeth Olsen, Toby Jones and De Niro’s wife, Grace Hightower.

Murphy plays the role of Tom Buckley, a brilliant young physicist who works in a university parapsychology department. His partner and boss is Dr. Margaret Matheson, who is played by Sigourney Weaver. Matheson is a skeptic and reminded me a lot of the Dan Scully character from “The X-Files.”

When Buckley and Matheson aren’t teaching parapsychology courses at the university, they busy themselves by traveling around and investigating paranormal claims. The movie shows them investigating (and debunking) haunted houses, automatic drawing and other phenomenon. You get the picture that they’re very experienced and have little trouble seeing through fakers.

The excitement really kicks up when the two researchers hear that renowned, world famous physic entertainer Simon Silver is coming out of retirement and plans to do a show in their town. Earlier in her career, Matheson had taken part in an effort to research Silver’s unusual abilities. Her partner eventually died during Silver’s last performance, and many blamed Silver for his death.

Despite the knowledge that investigating Silver could be dangerous, Buckley, Matheson and a young assistant play to do just that and as you might have imagined things get a little wonky. Matheson actually dies in the process and the movie climaxes when Buckley confronts Silver during one of his famous public performances. How does it end? You’ll have to watch for yourself to find out.

One cool thing about this movie is that it reminded me of one of my favorite books, “Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death” by Deborah Blum. In this book, which was published by Penguin Press in 2007, Blum, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, describes the quest by William James, a 19th Century psychologist, to scientifically study paranormal phenomena.

In its review of “Ghost Hunters,” Entertainment Weekly said that the book “is a fascinating, moving and, most importantly, paradigm-challenging account of the lives and work of the many scientists and thinkers who championed the cause of psychical research. These included Nobel Prize winners such as Lord Rayleigh; a future prime minister, Arthur Balfour; a poet laureate, Tennyson; a knight of the realm, Oliver Lodge; and other notables like Ruskin, Lewis Carroll, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Leslie Stephen, the literary critic and father of Virginia Woolf.”

Take it from me, if you enjoy reading about the paranormal, you’ll love this book. It's awesome.

In the end, how many of you have seen “Red Lights”? What did you think about it? Did you like it or not? How many of you have read Blum’s “Ghost Hunters”? What did you think about it? Let us know in the comments section below.