The Messengers (2007)

United States of America

Mystery, Thriller, Horror

Screen Gems, Ghost House Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Blue Star Pictures, Scarecrow Productions, Mandate Pictures

Kristen Stewart, Dylan McDermott, Penelope Ann Miller, John Corbett, William B. Davis, Brent Briscoe

Danny Pang, Oxide Pang Chun

NA

Taglines: There is evidence to suggest that children are highly susceptible to paranormal phenomena. They see what adults cannot. They believe what adults deny. And they are trying to warn us.

child murder, north dakota, little boy, rural area, sunflower, raven, death threat

When the Solomons trade in the craziness of big-city life for the quiet of a North Dakota farm, little do they expect the nightmare that follows. Soon after arriving, teenage Jess (Kristen Stewart) and her younger brother see terrifying apparitions and endure attacks from a supernatural source. Jess must warn her disbelieving family before it is too late to save them.

Reviews:

Author: Kamurai
Bad watch, probably won't watch again, and can't recommend. I actually like Kristen Stewart, and I think she performed decently in this, but she worked her ass off carrying the movie. John Corbett was the only other person pulling their weight in this movie. The story itself was okay, but it does have a lot of problems. My biggest was just their defiance of reality. The "in you face" thing is that the farm is plague with "crows" that are clearly ravens. This is done because you can train ravens much easier, but they're GIANT birds by average comparison of what size birds most people see. And then they do stupid things like leave feed out far enough away from where you would take it (those are not light bags), and when birds come, he shoos them farther into the car as the trunk is the only part open. They are planting sunflower seeds, which just means lots of things trying to eat it, but the timeline is all over the place. They go to plant seeds, and there are tiny plants in the background. There is an incident early on, then what seems like a week passes, but then it's almost end of harvest. And then there is still a giant bag of seeds to plant, and it isn't part of the harvest because it's by itself and I don't think they start harvesting during the movie. There is also the mold which she doesn't seem to know how to treat or why it would come back...just silly. But its details like these that show how poorly written the script is, especially the dialogue. The effects are actually pretty interesting, they did a good job on the birds, the wall, and the "flowing ground" was really interesting, but it's not enough to have a cool effect or two. You might as well, just have lots of odd explosions then. Overall, just not worth the watch, unless you want to see a movie where Kristen Stewart is objectively the best actor.