A family moves from Chicago to a farm to start a new life, but it doesn't take long before the daughter of the family starts seeing ghosts, only problem is that no one believes her.
Once again talented people leaves the East to take their careers further, to a more commercial level, in the U.S.. and the result? Well, as usual not that great, or very good for that matter. The very premise of The Messengers is not bad at all and I was excited to get to see some farm house horror with maybe an Asian twist to it. But in the end sweet turned sour and the last 15 minutes or so of the movie was quite the mess. Apparently there were some trouble on the set and there were re-shoots that had to be done, but not by the Pang Bros. It would've been fun to know exactly what went on, how much say the Directors had in the end and so on and so forth, because even if The Messengers sure had some Pang-ish feel to it, it was just not there to last all the way.
At least this time around we're not dealing with a remake, but nevertheless, we're dealing with Hollywood horror and that's just not a great thing these days.. still, they keep putting them out there. This film could maybe work well for those commercial moviegoers that are not too familiarized with the whole horror genre, but for horror fans, it just doesn't cut it.
 
The Solomon family moves to a farm to get a fresh start and to get away from their troubled past. Joining them is John Corbett who I belive is a good actor but that doesn't quite cut it here either. He's asking for work and Roy, the dad, hires him and you know right then and there that this guy has a secret or two. Anyway, it doesn't take long before the daughter Jess (Kristen Stewart) and her mute little brother (played by Silent Hills' Jodelle Ferland!) starts seeing ghosts. Jess tries to explain this to her mom and dad, but they won't listen to what she has to say and just believes she's unsatisfied with her new home. Why are there ghost in the house and did something happen in there in the past? Well, that's up to you to find out.
With most other films, I would not have cared, but since this was Pang material it was somehow more disappointing in the end. I gotta admit that I was really getting into it during the first half of the movie; the story was building some suspense and everything looked nice and dandy. There were scenes where crows attacked that were very visceral and the whole setting of the film, out there on that big ol' farm, looked great. The scares did not work too well though and it was too easy to see when they were gonna hit, still though, the film had a good feel to it. But towards the end, when the mystery revealed itself things became too simple, boring and you knew it was not gonna end well.. and it didn't either.
It was definitely not so bad that The Messengers is a film that you should totally avoid. If you have an interest in the Pang Bros. American debut, then by all means, go see it, just don't expect much.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: The Untitled Pang Brothers Horror Project
MOVIE YEAR: 2007
DIRECTOR: Oxide Pang Chun, Danny Pang
WRITING CREDITS: Mark Wheaton, Todd Farmer
GENRE: Horror
CAST: Kristen Stewart, Dylan McDermott, Penelope Ann Miller
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 85 min
RATING: 4/10
Messengers, The Website/IMDB Click here
Messengers, The Trailer Click here
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