The Messengers (2007)
Review by the Fiend of Grue
“Desperate for a fresh start after a tough two years in Chicago, the Solomon family retreats to a desolate sunflower farm in North Dakota. But the calm of farm life is shattered when 16-year-old Jess (Kristen Stewart) and her 3-year-old brother Ben begin to see nightmarish apparitions throughout their new home-visions that nobody else can see. As the visions grow darker, they become fear-inspiring experiences and Jess’ parents (Dylan McDermott and Penelope Ann Miller) start to question their daughter’s sanity. Now, Jess must find a way to save her family and win a battle with forces from far beyond the grave.”
Have you seen Stir Of Echoes? The Ring? The Grudge? If the answer is yes to any of those, then you can pass on The Messengers and not miss anything. The Messengers is nothing more than a knock off, lame and pointless movie that rehashes a ton of scenes and worn out ideas we‘ve already seen a million times before. The movie starts out promising, showing a family being attacked by an unseen entity in a very gothic looking house and scenery setting up a promising atmosphere. Next, we see the Solomon’s moving into that gothic looking house. It doesn’t take too long for the youngest kid to begin to see and hear things that are otherworldly but unfortunately the movie slowly regresses into tired clichés and over used ideas a la already said movies. From the creepy ghost child, to the disembodied sounds, to the ghost crawling on the ceiling with twitchy mannerisms and the crackling sounds it makes, to the child that is the only one to see these things until it’s too late…we have seen ALL of this before.
Why do movies like this continue to get put into production you may ask? It’s simple…it’s PG-13 and it’s catered to the dating crowd of teenagers to early twenty-somethings that gobble this stuff up the same way they do the latest Abercrombie And Fitch fashions. It’s pretty obvious that drek like this is going to continue to come down the chute when it makes more than the R rated horror pics that are coming out - The Messengers grossed $35 million at the box office. Bad business, like most of the latest R rated movies that have duded out at the box office as of late, means less of that product. Good business, like The Messengers, means more of that type of product. It is a business after all.
The movie was not complete garbage (just 99%) and there are far worse movies out there (if only a few). The original soundtrack was good and effective, the acting wasn’t bad for the most part (except for the interactions between Jess and her mother…just not a believable mother-daughter combo) and like I said before, up until a certain point it wasn’t half bad. Where the movie went south for me was when the little kid, Ben, sees the ghost crawling across the ceiling. HORRBILE CGI to say the least and a complete redundant sequence to the film. It’s meant to come off as scary, but comes off as laughable at best and I caught myself chuckling at it‘s stupidity. From there the movie spirals out of control until it crashes into a predictable date/thriller movie ending with no gusto.
Watch Stir Of Echoes instead. It was a definite trendsetter that was FRESH and NEW when it came out but sadly it has spawned big smelly brown turds like this.
Oh well….at least you can flush the toilet.
Popularity: 5% [?]
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