‘Messangers’ is one giant mess
Latest horror film is nothing new
By Eric James, contributing writer
Posted on February 5, 2007

Underacting. Overacting. Bad dialogue. Predictability. “The Messengers,” a horror film is so cliché, it’s almost hilarious to watch. Almost.

The story follows a well-to-do family that has fallen on hard times and moved from the big city to the North Dakota countryside. The father, Roy Solomon (Dylan McDermott, “The Practice”) wants to give the family a new start and harvest sunflowers for extra money. The catch is that their new home houses a family of ghosts who were murdered there years before.

The minute they arrive at their new house, the “scares” begin.  Ghostly shadows, black crows flying ominously about and strange bird drawings in window dust are all supposed to chill the viewer to their very core.

They don’t.

The ghosts are only visible to the teenage daughter Jess (Kristen Stewart, “Panic Room”) and her toddler brother, Ben (Evan and Theodore Turner). When Jess is left to baby-sit Ben — in the movie’s only semi-scary scene — the house becomes possessed, causing lamps and furniture to be thrown around the house. However, when the cops arrive, it is revealed that — shocker — nothing is actually broken. Jess’ parents don’t believe her story, adding to their already strained relationship. Things go really haywire when the ghost of a little boy attacks Jess and sends her to the hospital. Of course, her parents think she hurt herself, and the ghosts become more dangerous.  

The story has been done over and over, each time getting less entertaining than the last.  You can see the ending coming from a mile away, and when it does arrive, it’s so bad it leaves you laughing at its ridiculousness. The plot is not only foreseeable and generic, but the acting is stiff and the characters have little to no chemistry. This is especially true of Jess’ parents, Denise (played by Penelope Ann Miller, “Carlito’s Way”) and Roy. They seem less like a married couple and more like cardboard cutouts in their scenes together.

Little things in the movie don’t seem to add up. Why wouldn’t a child no older than 3 or 4 years old be terrified of a ghost with a bullet hole in its head? Instead, little Ben points to the ghost and giggles, as he follows it around the house. And why would a father move a farmhand (played by John Corbett, “Sex and the City”) into his house just five minutes after meeting him, and then leave his 17-year-old daughter alone with the man? Moreover, why would Jess, who is already afraid of the ghosts, think it’s wise to keep going into the cellar and the abandoned barn alone? They might be little details, but they add up to a typical thriller with questionable events.

It’s hard to understand why good actors would be in a movie like this.  Both McDermott and Corbett were on hit television shows, where they did a great job.  It makes you wonder whether they actually read the script before signing on to do the movie.  When the best thing you can say about a horror film is that it had really beautiful shots of sunflower fields and mountains, you have a problem.  Instead of “The Messengers,” this movie should have been called “The Mess,” because that’s exactly what it was — a hot mess. 

1 ½ stars