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RATING |
| 5 |
| DIRECTOR |
Oxide Pang
Danny Pang |
CAST |
Kristen Stewart
Dylan McDermott
Penelope Ann Miller
John Corbett |
YEAR |
| 2007 |
RUNTIME |
| 84 minutes |
DATE REVIEWED |
| 6 / 11 / 07 |
SHOPPING |
| BUY THIS FILM |
| REVIEWER: FrighT MasteR |
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RATE THIS MOVIE:
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RATED BY:
30 FAN(S) |
CURRENT RATING:
5.33 SKULL(S)
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The Messengers
Originally titled Scarecrow when it was announced a couple years back, and based on a screenplay by Jason X writer Todd Farmer, The Messengers would be the American directorial debut of Danny and Oxide Pang (A.K.A. the "Pang Brothers"), who many may remember as the helmers of smash Hong Kong flick The Eye. Almost making back the budget, the film opened at decent numbers with almost $15-million. The next week it would plummet by 50% and continue its downfall as the reviews and bad word-of-mouth traveled. This movie should provide future filmmakers an example of how NOT to end a film, because up until the last 25-or-so-minutes, it was a fairly decent watch. I'm a big fan of the Pang Bro's work with The Eye, but the rest of their projects have pretty much been misses, with the exception of a couple. Using The Messengers as their introduction to mainstream America is definitely not a good starting point for these guys.
So, we've got the standard premise that we're already quite familiar with -- a family moves into an old secluded sunflower farm, where the spirits of the previous owners are seemingly still roaming around and scaring the crap out of the daughter (Kristen Stewart), and whose only ally is her younger brother "Ben", who can also see the ghosts, but is too young to speak more than a couple words. In the fashion of the Pang Bros, they've thrown a bunch of semi-creepy ghosts and sequences into the film and leave very little in terms of story. The ghosts weren't very creepy, but they did deliver some decent scenes and I was actually beginning to like the movie. Then, of course, almost an hour into it and one plot-hole after another, in addition to the ridiculous and predictable ending, any sort of positive look I had towards the film pretty much flew out the window. It just seemed so unrealistic at how many huge plot-holes remained in the movie and how a script like this got greenlit in the first place.
OVERALL
A decent flick up until the incredibly predictable and horrendous ending reared its ugly head. The film offered some decent ghosts and semi-creepy scenes, but had way too many plot-holes for its own good. Not recommended.
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they make this movie look like trash. Over all It's about 4 in my movie
collection
but anyway about the film. It had decent parts to it. I don't like this asian horror movie stuff though. The directors know how to direct but the ghosts in this movie were stupid. No more grudge/the ring type movies, please!
Obviously Todd Farmer did a horrible job writing this one.... typical horror movie for one. Plot holes and illogical choices made by the characters drove it down even more.
I enjoyed the movie, but it's nothing special at all.