Why do movies like this always have such unsatisfactory endings? Who pays to watch this stuff, anyway? You? Hope not.
The Messengers (2007)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:81
Fresh:9
Rotten:72
Average Rating:3.6/10
Consensus: The Messengers is an atmospheric but derivative rip-off of countless other horror movies.
Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating] for mature thematic material, disturbing violence and terror.
Runtime: 1 hr 31 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Theatrical Release:Feb 2, 2007 Wide
Box Office: $35,374,833
Synopsis: Twin filmmakers Danny and Oxide Pang's creepy 2003 feature THE EYE earned them enough kudos to make the leap to Hollywood, and their first effort is the creepy chiller THE MESSENGERS. A... Twin filmmakers Danny and Oxide Pang's creepy 2003 feature THE EYE earned them enough kudos to make the leap to Hollywood, and their first effort is the creepy chiller THE MESSENGERS. A Chicago-based family comprised of Roy (Dylan McDermott), his wife, Denise (Penelope Ann Miller), their teenage daughter, Jess (Kristen Stewart), and young son, Ben (played by twins Evan and Theodore Turner) try to put the hard times behind them with a move to a picturesque farmhouse in North Dakota. Jess quickly becomes convinced that the house is haunted after some peculiar occurrences while she's alone there with young Ben. But Ben can't articulate what he's seen, and Jess's story is met with skepticism by her parents. It soon becomes apparent that past family tensions are slowly boiling to the surface. Meanwhile, the ghosts keep coming, and the Pang brothers never keep their audience waiting for long before another nerve-jangling scene shudders into view. But as the ghosts torment their new residents, Jess does a little research on the old farmhouse and discovers a few secrets that may just hold the key to why this is all happening. Packed full of CGI effects and a few moments that may cause a jump or two, THE MESSENGERS is a horror movie aimed at a young audience and not horror aficionados, as indicated by its PG-13 rating. [More]
Starring: Dylan McDermott, Penelope Ann Miller, John Corbett, Kristen Stewart
Starring: Dylan McDermott, Penelope Ann Miller, John Corbett, Kristen Stewart
Director: Oxide Pang, Danny Pang
Director: Oxide Pang, Danny Pang
Screenwriter: Todd Farmer
Producer: Sam Raimi, William Sherak, Jason Shuman, Rob Tapert
Composer: Joseph LoDuca
Studio: Columbia Pictures
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Release:
Jun 5, 2007
Reviews for The Messengers
If the ghosts were magnets and the Solomons were paperclips, the two parties couldn't be in a bigger rush to collide.
The plethora of horror movie cliches -- even those still residually effective -- weigh so heavily in The Messengers that whatever moments of terror that might have been had are left positively weightless.
Every movie has to have its own sense of logic, horror movies perhaps most of all, but as this story heads towards its climax it begins to contradict what it's told us to believe all along.
It's awards season, so we'd like to nominate The Messengers for the yet-to-be-established Tippi Hedren Award for best use of malignant ravens in a motion picture.
With The Messengers, the Pang brothers devise scenes so scary that they stain the imagination and never scrub out.
The Messengers isn't a particularly frightening or gory horror movie, but directors Danny and Oxide Pang do have a special talent for torturing the reputations of their actors.
Even though The Messengers turns out to be deeply and irrevocably flawed, it's still the best movie Ghost House has released to date
The film's problems boil down to story. The Messengers has none, or nothing beyond the sketch of an idea: family with troubled past moves into spooky new home.
the running motif of crows run amok has too much of Hitchcock's THE BIRDS about it to stand on its own, even in the Pang's capable hands. Then again, any script that dared use that motif was setting itself up for a fall, and that's exactly what it got
The Messengers falls flat with its tedious plot, clichéd storyline and unsurprising twist.
And what crop is Dylan growing, you ask? Sunflowers. Yes, sunflowers. Agriculture's baby-step from farming dandelions. Why not just harvest weeds?
The Pangs might know how to knee-jerk shock an audience ad nauseam, but the remainder of The Messengers suffers from shamelessly thudding banality.
However, in their (The Pangs) first serving of an American-made boofest served with all the fixings of a horror-induced bunt cake the taste still remains strikingly superficial
Viewers who prefer to see blood splattering and internal organs being sliced and diced will be disappointed.
The script is so tired and derivative that even though there are tiny scares here and there, it's boring after a while.
The Pangs are technically proficient enough to deliver the requisite jolts, but déjà vu haunts the film as surely as its pasty-faced, hitch-stepped ghoulies, and it's hard to shake the impression that we've seen this movie before.
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