By Uncle Creepy (of Dread Central)
The Pang Brothers. I'm thinking Danny and Oxide should change their names to Hit and Miss. Why, you ask? Because that is the perfect description of their work. Best known for their Eye trilogy, the Brothers have been pumping out ghost stories with mixed results for the better part of the last ten years. While The Eye was a great film and even The Eye 2 served its purpose, it was the laughably bad The Eye 10 that nearly made me write the duo off completely.
Here in the States J-Horror has just about run its course. Even Sirand, our resident foreign freak, is fed up with the twitchy chicks with long black hair. What was once a breath of fresh air from the Far East has now become soured by the stench of cliché. So what's a pair of filmmakers looking to cash in on a passing craze to do? Simple! Head to America and make their latest spook-fest specifically for Western audiences. Enter The Messengers. A film that is — you guessed it — hit and miss.
Sixteen-year-old Jess (Kristen Stewart) is a bit of a problem child. After a couple of rough years in Chi-town, her family packs up and heads to North Dakota to become — hold on to your asses — sunflower farmers(!). Well, I guess someone's gotta do it, right?
Upon reaching their new dwelling place, Jess discovers that they are not alone. Living with her parents and her little brother are some pretty nasty spirits and a murder of crows. Of course her folks assume that she's just acting out again so they dismiss her rantings as a cry for attention. Luckily for Jess, her brother can see the ghosties too, but the poor kid can't speak so she can't even get her story corroborated. Hell, at least she knows she's not crazy. Things quickly get out of hand, and before you know it, the entire family is taking on the evil in the home as one unit while screaming their heads off on the road to a twist ending, which, I must admit, I didn't see coming.
All in all, aside from some strange plot choices (read: sunflower farming(!) being the profession of choice) The Messengers does just fine in the story department. More importantly the ghosts do their jobs well enough when it comes to delivering the creeps. There were more than a couple of "that's messed-up" moments that had me grinning with goosebumps.
Article comments
1 - Diana
very scary moviie that is.I had the movie called Messengers and the creepy part was when Jhon was mad about the solmons family and thinking they were the rollins!!!