Oh My, Another Absolutely Terrible Horror Film Without Redemption: "The Messengers"
Written: Aug 20 '07
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Well, it makes for great MST3K fodder . . .
Cons: Wow . . . everything. Acting, characters, plot, direction, effects, all of it.
The Bottom Line: In another disappointing horror flick, the undead come to a troubled family's new farm where only the youth can see them.
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| wlswarts's Full Review: Messengers |
Every time I sit down to write a movie review, I look the film up on the IMDB in order to be sure that I am getting the spellings of names correctly and to properly reference things like the directors, writers, etc. Whenever I do this - which is especially useful, notably for reviews I'm writing weeks after seeing a film - I usually learn something about the work I am reviewing. Every now and again, I become baffled by something I find out about the film that makes me just shake my head. In the case of "The Messengers," when I sat down to prepare this review, I was reminded that there were two directors for this movie and I learned that there were two writers for it as well. My thought was dismay to think that it took four people to create this piece of crap.
When the Solomon family moves out to North Dakota to start their new life on a farm, disturbed daughter Jess begins to see things. Her younger brother, Ben, mute for months, sees the undead as well wandering around the house and doing generally creepy things. Because Jess has a prior incident that left her parents distrustful of her, father Roy and mother Denise tend to focus on growing sunflowers and shooing away the murders of crows that appear to eat the crop. They take in the kindly Burwell Rollins, who helps with the farming and they wait for the crop of sunflower seeds to come in to make a living at this. Meanwhile, Jess faces the specters that roam the farmhouse and tries to unravel the apparent mystery of the haunted house.
This witless work reminds one of just how bad horror movies have the potential to be. Like "Pulse" (reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_335680540292 ), the basic premise of "The Messengers" is not necessarily bad. Unfortunately, the idea of children seeing the forces of evil that adults are blinded to, is sublimated by effect-rich shots that make absolutely no sense (like how the basement floor of the farmhouse becomes selectively liquid throughout the film). Instead, "The Messengers" quickly degenerates into yet another undead revenge story a la "The Grudge" (reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_312319577732 ) or "Dark Water" (reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_306477633156 ). Sadly, even while watching "The Messengers," my thought was "there is so much here for the next 'Scary Movie' installment!"
What's so bad about "The Messengers?" First, let's start with the obviousness of the plot and character devices. Like a good drama, "The Messengers" begins with the sense that the Solomon family is a family with a backstory. There is a history to the group that has resulted in Roy being wary of Jess and Denise outright not trusting her. Ben does not speak, even when in mortal peril. The obvious directions for this movie to go would be for the viewer to find out about the incident that precipitated the move (which no doubt closely relates to the current paranormal situation) and sometime before the end of the flick, the silent child would speak again. And lo and behold! This is EXACTLY the way the movie goes. This movie is utterly unsurprising and as a result, completely unoriginal.
The only thing less clever than the plotting of the film, wherein the only interloper into the family - Rollins - naturally is not what he appears, is the characterization. All of the characters are fairly generic and the results of the combination of the "types" is more silly than suspenseful. William B. Davis - beloved by fans of "The X-Files" for his portrayal of The Cigarrette-Smoking Man - appears in what amounts to a cameo as a Generic Creepy Guy who offers to buy the farm back from Roy right away. The purpose of his character is not so much to provide valuable plot information or even a reasonable amount of suspense, but rather to fill an obvious niche in the horror film as the creepy sage who provides a warning to the protagonist (the witches in "The Tragedy of MacBeth" filled the same niche, only with much greater purpose).
Roy is the generic father figure and the moment he becomes remarkably - near the end of the film - the result is more laughable and disappointing than heroic. Without ruining anything of this flick, I shall simply say that when a film sets up a character as the "typical father" and then tacks on an exceptional ability (like the ability to do anything physical after a trauma to the body), the result has to be explained or it falls flat and into the realm well outside suspension of disbelief. Roy falls into such territory so that the legitimacy of the end of the film is completely compromised.
But much of the film remains focused on Jess, played by Kristen Stewart the jailbait of the week actress who is attempting to carve out a niche on the big screen. The directors arguably do not use Stewart as any form of sex symbol (a relief given her age, though that doesn't seem to stop most directors these days!) and her asexual qualities play fine throughout the movie until "The Messengers" tacks on "Generic Romance Subplot #12" wherein Young Woman (damsel in distress) must express some interest in Local Boy of Approximately Same Age. Jess pairs up, even minimally, with Bobby in a pointless plot move designed to bring the film closer to 90 minutes (it fails, clocking out at 84 minutes!).
And this is where writers Mark Wheaton and Todd Farmer ought to lose their ability to ever write - especially in Hollywood - for eternity. The whole point of virtually any Romantic Subplot that is tacked on to a film that has no real need for romance is simple; it's designed to make the viewer care about the protagonist and/or to insinuate that the character on screen has something more to live for than themselves or their immediate goal. Jess does not. Moreover, her brief, mostly implicit relationship with the bland local boy does not make her more interesting, does not give her more incentive to live and it certainly does not give the viewer more of a reason to watch.
Instead, this film is a continued disappointment. The disappointment resulting from watching Dylan McDermott slouch around the sunflower fields without any spark of intellect or intrigue that he possessed on "The Practice" is trumped only by the mystery of how the directors got John Corbett (from "Northern Exposure") to play such a dull and disappointing character as Burwell.
The DVD extras are similarly unenthusiastic with such things as the trailer and featurette being uninformative and as dull as the film.
No, "The Messengers" will not scare, certainly not thirteen year-olds or older, it will not entertain and it won't even amuse. If you insist on watching this piece of garbage, at least have someone watch it with you who can wisecrack throughout to make it more entertaining. Otherwise, it's a waste of 84 minutes of life.
Recommended:
No
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wlswarts
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Member: W.L. Swarts
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