The Messengers (15)

Film

Thrillers

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<strong>Rating: </strong>1/5
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Time Out says

Tue Apr 3 2007

Although Danny and Oxide Pang’s first English-language movie is a cut above most Hollywood supernatural thrillers, it inhabits an awkward aesthetic limbo. A gothic ghost story, it harks back to the stylish creepiness of their breakthrough Hong Kong movie, ‘The Eye’, but is constrained by an over-worked generic plot.Seeking a fresh start, Roy Solomon (Dylan McDermott ) moves with his wife and three kids to a remote North Dakota farm. Drifter John Burwell (John Corbett) helps plant sunflowers and becomes a trusted employee. Then, as harbinger crows swirl about, two of the children see pale-skinned spectres scuttling across the ceiling and floating down hallways. But one stays mute and the other’s visions are dismissed as attention-seeking.Mark Wheaton’s genre-savvy script and the Pang brothers’ fluid visual style generate some powerful scares and involving emotional undercurrents. Yet many of the images feel over-familiar, and the shocks a mite too forced.

Author: Nigel Floyd

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Release details

Rated:

15

UK release:

Fri Apr 6, 2007

Duration:

90 mins

Cast and crew

Cast:

Kristen Stewart, John Corbett, Penelope Ann Miller, Dylan McDermott

Editor:

Armen Minasian, John Axelrad

Production Designer:

Alicia Keywan

Cinematography:

David Geddes

Producer:

Jason Shuman, William Sherak, Rob Tapert, Sam Raimi

Screenwriter:

Mark Wheaton

Director:

Oxide Pang, Danny Pang

Music:

Joseph LoDuca

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Comments & ratings

Rated as: 1/5 (2 ratings)

  • Er, THREE kids? I only spotted two. Which makes me think even more that the reviewer here didn't even watch the film. The plot is predictable, the characters are as wooden as the house they move to & the viewer, knowing nothing about the family, doesn't care about them, so doesn't care what happens to them - it's a rule as old as the hills: make people care about the people in your movie by building their personalities. This was simply dreadful.

    sean Sat Mar 26 2011
    Rated as: 1/5
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  • My God I fell to sleep. I gave it one star because the ending--despite the bad film made sense!

    Craig Thu Mar 27 2008
    Rated as: 1/5
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  • You will rarely see me say this but this movie was complete and utter smelly s**t. It was so bad it was just awful. How can the actors and actresses feel proud when they say they were in it. Im not saying scary movies need gore because they dont-but there wasnt anything about it at all! Who is scared of a psycho farmer with a rake and a couple of crows that attack when you're getting the weekly shop out of the car boot! the kid was gormless and the girl was gormless and even the gollum creature was gormless. I went to sleep and kept skipping ahead scenes in this. If you are an insomniac craving sleep then by all means buy it-it will do you good! No rating!

    Elena Thu Mar 27 2008
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