Wherein I Review 'The Messengers'

A copy and paste of my review on filmspot.com. I gave it 1½ Stars out of 5.


A growing trend in modern movies seems to be spending more budget on advertising than that the actual production of the movie. Perhaps that isn't the case, it's the just the general feeling that I get.

I went into this with expectations of mediocrity... and even with that, I was disappointed.

To begin, this movie seems to be trying to capitalize on the formula of 'give as little as possible'. The story, if you can call it that, is meant to unfold before you. Unfortunately, they don't give you enough to really care.

You begin by seeing that some sort of tragic events that happened in a house. Then you meet a family who is moving into that house, apparently years later, how many is hard to gauge. There are many 'tidbits' that are left for you, like breadcrumbs, and you are meant to follow them.

The house itself is an ancient, dilapidated relic of a farm, where, apparently this family is making their 'new start'. It's supposed to be clear from the get go that the family has suffered from something, but, exactly what doesn't become known for a very, very long time. When it is revealed, you just want to want to smack the stupid out of them for suffering from being a family.

As the movie progresses, slowly, there are a few 'scares' which come from a penchant the writer has with crows. We don't know why there are crows, and we never discover why there are crows. We assume that it might have something to do with the farms historical problems with producing a good crop. Perhaps.

The crop in question, by the way, is sunflowers. Now, for whatever reason, the family has bought this house, and the Father has decided to try and make a go with the crops, though it's clear that this isn't actually a huge money making venture. The father is faced with planting, tending, and harvesting a crop all by himself... that is, until the random stranger shows up and helps scare away some crows. The man pitches in with only the promise of being paid after the harvest and room & board. It's not the slightest bit strange that a man with a shotgun is meandering across their farm, and then just agrees in a split second decision to live with them for the several months of crop of this type would take to grow, although, you really don't feel more than a few days have passed by the time you reach the end.

The movie continues to progress slowly with minimal scares from creepy 'Japanese Horror Style' ghouls, stains, and puddles. The ghouls are seen, at first, only the youngest member of the household, who can't speak. Scares also include atypical forays into unknown destruction of the home, seen only by one member of the family, and therefore, unsubstantiated, and various thuds and bumps.

Eventually, it all comes together... sort of. But, not without failing miserably at making any type of sense at all. The breadcrumbs we'd been following eventually come to abrupt end, when, in the C story, the girl who's scared to death, runs away to find a picture that's half hidden on a wall she only saw for a brief moment. After she's seen that, a newsclipping, she rushes back to save the day.

When everything is finally over, you really don't understand why any of it happened, and you feel sort of hollow and empty inside.

I will warn you, there is a scene in the end, where the family comes together, and it's so very clear that there's a deep and meaningful subtext, you might feel compelled to physically throw things at the screen.

The bottom line? Reading this review is infinitely more entertaining than this movie, and I don't really think this was all that entertaining at all.