[The Messengers]
Plot:An ominous darkness invades a seemingly serene sunflower farm in North Dakota, and the Solomon family is torn apart by suspicion, mayhem and murder.

Cast: Kristen Stewart, Dylan McDermott, Penelope Ann Miller, John Corbett, Evan Turner, Theodore Turner, William B. Davis, Brent Briscoe, Dustin Milligan, Jodelle Ferland, Michael Daingerfield, Tatiana Maslany, Shirley McQueen, Anna Hagan, Blaine Hart.

My Thoughts:Are they kidding??

Review:After "The Grudge 2" turning out to be a pretty solid sequel, I figured okay.....maybe Ghost House Pictures has finally gotten their act together. But then, along came "The Messengers" to shred that train of thought to pieces like a cheap suit. It would be hard to believe that such a bad film was the brainchild of Danny and Oxide Pang, the genius Pang brothers behind the "Eye" films. That's because it wasn't. The Pangs only directed the film, but had no hand in writing the script at all. That was left up to Todd Farmer and Mark Wheaton. Big mistake, the Pang's should've atleast co-wrote the picture. Their signature is here though. The directing is superb, but the script.....awful! Farmer wrote "Jason X" (which despite many peoples opinions I liked), and he's penning the upcoming horror movie "Clocktower", which is based off of a video game of the same name. Wheaton meanwhile wrote for FANGORIA at one point in his career. So it's hard to believe that these two could join forces to create such a cinematic disaster. But they did. That's not to put all the blame on them though, the acting wasn't that great either in this film. The movie starts off in very awesome fashion. With a family on the run inside their home. Obviously, something is after them and slaughters them all one by one, leaving a little boy hidden in the cabinet for last. Then fast forward many years later, we're introduced to Jess (Kristen Stewart), her little brother Ben, Roy (Dylan Mcdermott), and Denise (Penelope Ann Miller). A family from Chicago who have moved to Belton North Dakota now that Roy is out of a job. They plan on making some money by harvesting Sunflowers. Yeah, I thought wtf?? myself too. I'd have to be in a really shitty life situation in every way imaginable before I'd even consider such an endeavor. Not that Dylan Mcdermott doesn't play a down and out dad really well though. Trust me, he does. The guy keeps a "life sucks" sort of facial expression throughout most of the film. Penelope Ann Miller plays the perky mom character decent enough, and Kristen Stewart steals the show as Jess, their likeable -- yet at times so stupid you just wanna hit her in the head with a breadstick, teenage daughter. Once they arrive at the house, a dude from the bank shows up telling them someone else wants to buy the house. But Roy seeing as how he just got there, and despite the deal being all of their money returned, plus 15% more...won't sell so quickly. This, as a horror movie golden rule...turns out to be a big mistake later on. The ghosts of course don't waste anytime making life "interesting" for the new owners of the house. The problem however is that this film telegraphs where it's going way too early. If you're even remotely smart, you already know "who" the ghosts are, and "why" they haunt the place. "The Messengers" tries to keep it's spectre's intriguing and interesting by setting up a plot point where only Jess and her little brother Ben can see the ghosts because they're kids. Of course, this plot point fails later on when after making us think that the ghosts are only visible to the children...Denise sees one of the ghosts forming through a wall in act three. Which pretty much made me say to myself "Oh, everyone can see the ghosts...it's just that the adults in the movie were as usual, too stupid and busy with their own shit to do to take the time to pay attention to anything beyond themselves". "Hence why they never noticed the ghosts before". Silly me, thinking Ghost House actually had actually come up with an original idea. Speaking of original, these ghosts are certainly not. They crawl around the ceilings, and the walls, and appear through water stains on the walls. "Darkness" anyone?? The only original thing these spirits do is appear through the floorboards in the basement using a large puddle of black goop as their doorway into our world. Stewart's character Jess seems to be the constant target of these ghosts, and along with almost getting her in the basement (twice I might add), they also acost her in the doorway of the basement, and in the barn. Not that she doesn't make it easy for them, as she's constantly strolling about places where she shouldn't be and always giving the ghosts the opportunity to just snatch her away into the netherworld. Sometimes I wondered if maybe she hated her family so much that she actually wanted to be taken by the ghosts. Now that would've been an interesting wrinkle to add to the plot if someone with a brain were writing the story. Rather than a troubled teen commiting suicide by gun, how about suicide by ghost? While we're waiting for someone other than Jess to see these spirits, nothing interesting outside of that happens in the picture. A scraggly looking drifter named Burwell (John Corbett) shows up and Roy eventually employ's him to work on the farm. Jess meets a kid named Bobby who strolls in and out of the picture like the pointless character that he is. And then there are those black crows, who seem to really hate Roy and Burwell as they attack them both at seperate points in the movie. Sad to say, this film was going so badly I wanted to see more of the crows, as their scenes were the only real interesting ones. And you know a film is bad when the crows are more aggressive and vicious than the ghosts in the movie. Who pretty much just show up to try and drag Jess away over and over again. "The Messengers" does try to be atleast, somewhat original. Throwing in a twist ending where the ghosts are all of a sudden thrust into the role of savior in the movie as a new enemy emerges, but by that time the film has just droned on and on and I really failed to care. Besides, the twist just does even more damage to an already crappy movie. It turns everything upside down, and destroys the supernatural element entirely. "The Messengers" was THE worst pic from Ghost House I've ever seen. Even worse than "Boogeyman".

Positives:Kristen Stewart does what she can with her poorly written character. The movie is shot very nicely by the Pang Brothers.

Negatives:Bad script, poor acting by most of the cast outside of Stewart. Lame ghosts, even lamer plot twist at the end. No blood, gore, or graphic deaths to speak of.

Overall:My "message" to you......stay away from this one...far far away!





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