The Messengers

The Messengers

2007

Horror

Rated: PG-13

Running Time: 90 minutes
Starring: Kirsten Stewart, Dylan McDermott, John Corbett, Penelope Ann Miller

Directed By: Oxide Pang Chung, Danny Pang

Rating: 3.5 out of 10

Outline

A family moves into a vacant farm only to find out they are not as alone as they thought.

Review

There is nothing more frustrating to a viewer than watching a movie with no clear vision. The Messengers falls into the jumbled mess of a story category and I still don’t understand the Director’s vision for this film. The Messengers is the story of the Solomon family. They move to a vacant sunflower farm in the hopes of a fresh start and a new life. The problem is this house may not be as abandoned as one would hope. Adding to the confusion is it seems only the kids can see the odd things occurring in the house.

With the success of Japanese Horror remakes in The Ring and The Grudge you knew the market would soon be flooded with impersonator films like this one. This film is a cheap Japanese horror knockoff best left in the dvd bin at your local corner store. The film’s start while not particularly scary is a cool concept filmed in black and white. It is a wonder more movies are not filmed like this as it has an eerie effect. The opening scene shows you once upon a time this peaceful and quiet sunflower farm was the scene of some brutal violence upon its former occupants. A quick introduction to the Soloman family moving in many years later is a nice start to the film and the farm itself is nice setting for supernatural mischief. This is where the film gets super confusing. Normally in these types of films they explain even thinly why things are happening but not with this one. The kids Jess and especially Ben are the only ones able to witness the strange happenings around the farm. So you will be presented with visions that may make you jump the odd time but are left unexplained. The story is also a bore while all the nonsense visuals are going on. The Soloman family has moved here from Chicago so there is the added stress of a new life that you will not remotely care about.

Kirsten Stewart plays the older daughter Jess and she shows she has little passion for this film. She always looks like she has just broken up with her boyfriend and listening to a song by Simple Plan in this movie. Her lack of facial expressions coupled with her monotone delivery will be a disappointing watch for most. Or maybe she took the Advice from Joey from television’s Friends and went with the “smell the fart acting” Whatever the case she was terrible in this film. Her parents Roy played by Dylan McDermott and Denise played by Penelope Ann Miller were unremarkable in their respective roles.

The kid Ben played by Evan and Theodore Turner were the best parts of this movie. Not in the acting sense because he rarely spoke more in the frights delivered through his character. John Corbett playing hired farmhand Burwell was a nice addition to the film but underutilised.

The films weak story line coupled with strange encounters will leave most viewers disinterested in this film about a quarter ways in. That feeling never goes away. For some reason the entities follow Ben, harass Jess, and go barely recognised by the adults. However the father Roy is constantly being hounded by aggressive crows. In fact there are so many crows used in this film even Hitchcock would say you went too far with the birds in this one. It is never explained what sort of messages these entities were trying to convey. Although the film has resolution it never delves into what we witnessed throughout the film. This film could not finish fast enough for me because not only was it not scary the computer effects on the crows and the Japanese style horror visuals were comical for the most part instead of scary.

Directors Oxide Pang Chung and Danny Pang have been boring audiences for years with such disasters as Bangkok Dangerous and now this on their resume. There are so many flaws in this film it is hard to know where to start. The story is hands down the worst part of this film. They did nothing with it and used terrible CGI never capturing that ultimate thrill factor. The casting was shoddy and with the PG-13 rating they were never really pushing any of the scare factors one would hope for in a film like this. I did like that the kids could only see the goings on but it still was never utilised correctly. This was another terrible showing and they need to bring it back to the horror basics like they used in the movie The Eye (2002)

This movie does not get a recommendation from me as it was trying to tell us a message but got lost in the translation.

T Factor + If you like Japanese style horror this could score higher on the rating scale.

T Factor – If you like graphic scenes of fright then this could score lower on the rating scale.

If you liked this film reel recommendations: Gothika, The Eye