Screen Gems' new horror flick The Messengers marks the stateside directing debut of Chinese filmmaking siblings Danny and Oxide Pang. The film was produced by Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures, the same outfit that was behind The Grudge -- a film that The Messengers owes more than a little to.
Both films are haunted house movies with "fish out of water" protagonists and creepy, crawly dead people contorting themselves all over the place. Domestic violence is also a key element in both films. These striking similarities essentially make The Messengers feel like The Grudge on a farm.
The Messengers follows the Solomon family -- dad Roy, mom Denise, rebellious teenage daughter Jess and baby brother Ben -- who have left their hardships in Chicago behind to start anew in bucolic North Dakota. Roy has literally bought the farm, purchasing a rural old house in order to realize his dream of growing sunflowers.
Jess got into serious trouble back in Chicago, a dark secret that the film nicely holds off on explaining fully until act three. Roy's job and financial woes only compounded the family's trauma. But if one has lost their savings and their job, would moving to the country and banking it all on sunflowers seem like the best bet?
No sooner has the family moved in than Jess starts noticing increasingly creepy things, culminating in poltergeist attacks and appearances by the specters of the doomed family that lived there before them. Jess' claims are dismissed by her folks as the ravings of a surly kid who just wants to move back home.
Meanwhile, Roy hires drifter John Burwell as his farmhand. Is Burwell friend or foe? The fact that he's a dead ringer for Ted Nugent should sound enough alarm bells, but perhaps he's just a red herring. Speaking of birds, there is also a murder of Hitchcockian crows that start plaguing the new inhabitants.
The problem with The Messengers is that it simply doesn't offer up much of anything new. The overrated Grudge already covered a lot of this territory, as did The Others and The Haunting and even Poltergeist. If there's one thing haunted house films prove, it's to never buy a big home situated in the middle of nowhere. You never hear of ghosts bedeviling the tenants of a one bedroom apartment in Van Nuys, do you? Perhaps this sub-genre has simply been done to death.
The scares in this film just aren't all that scary or novel. There are a couple of nice creepy moments -- watch closely while Penelope Ann Miller makes the bed -- but, between the music telegraphing every scare ahead of time and the heavy-handed editing, the intensity soon turns to monotony. While it was wise for the story to focus on the family and to provide them with realistic problems to face outside of the supernatural threat, it was not enough to save The Messengers.
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As suspense/horror movies go, this one isn't amazing. Honestly.
Personally I'd recommend watching the afore mentioned separately, each being better alone than this film. I mean, yeah, its kinda fun the first time or two... but after about half a dozen, you start to wonder if there is anything else to be had.
The Turner kids who played Ben are certainly entertaining to watch, giving a cute contrast to the grungy atmosphere of the movie.
As a quick side note, I DO commend this movie for not being gratuitously gory.
All in all, this movie isn't the worst of its kinda, but it is in no way the best. If you're looking for a deeper, more thought-provoking thriller... I strongly recommend looking elsewhere.