Year of Release: 2007
Director: Danny Pang, Oxide Chun Pang
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Dylan McDermott, Penelope Ann Miller, John Corbett, Dustin Milligan, Evan Turner, Theodore Turner, William B. Davis, Jodelle Ferland, Michael Daingerfield, Tatiana Maslany, Anna Hagan
Genre: Horror, Thriller, Drama
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 2
Watch it on Amazon
Synopsis and Review:
Sibling film makers and directors Danny and Oxide Chun Pang, made a splash in the early 2000s with their feature directorial debut, "Bangkok Dangerous", which they followed with the successful "The Eye", which became a franchise of its own. "The Messengers" was their first American film based on a story by Todd Farmer, who also wrote one of the "Friday the 13th" installments. The film follows the story of Jess, a teenager girl who is moving to North Dakota, alongside her family, following some traumatic events which took place in Chicago. The family invested all their money in the purchase of a farm, and the father is committed into making the whole experience work. While Jess embarks on the journey, her relationship with her parents is somewhat rocky, based on what happened in the past. Jess also starts noticing strange things around the house, much like her younger brother Ben, which leads her to believe something has happened in the house. As she goes about discovering more about the previous owners of the house and whatever happened to them, her father gets actual help in the shape of Burwell, an experienced farmer who works alongside him to get the crops settled. However and the longer the family stays in the house, the stronger the indication of supernatural elements actually become, something which horrifies Jess, and causes nothing but disbelief in her parents.
"The Messengers" has some traces of Stuart Rosenberg's "The Amityville Horror", in the sense that the house in which the action takes place, is somewhat of a container for all the events that are going to haunt this new family. However whereas Stuart Rosenberg allowed for the audience to understand and get some insight into the family dynamics and what lied within that house, in the case of "The Messengers", the directors are seemingly more interested in dusting the action with suggestions of the supernatural, never truly giving much dimension to who these characters actually are. Nothing much is ever revealed about the life of the parents, whose sole purpose in the film seems to be antagonizing Kristen Stewart's actions, including her revelations, and generally operating as some shady nurses of a rundown mental institution a la "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest". While the film in the hands of director such as Guillermo Del Toro could have become somewhat of a gothic tale of ghosts vying for justice, here it's sadly a generic and forgettable tale of frights, that truly never amount to much. Kristen Stewart tries her best to carry the film through, but even her presence can't make this film compelling or memorable. Forgettable.
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