Scan and Pan
Monday, February 05, 2007
The Messengers
A troubled family moves from Chicago to a sunflower farm in rural North Dakota. The house has a history of people disappearing while living in it, and soon the teenage daughter and toddler son begin to see and experience things that no one else does.
Directors Oxide and Danny Pang at their best know how to terrify an audience with creepy images and sounds. Unfortunately, this film doesn't represent them at their best. For their first US film, they play it far too safe and the pacing is too slow to sustain any tension. Except for their names in the credits, there's nothing that would indicate it's one of their films. The unimaginative script by Mark Wheaton (Firestorm: Last Stand at Yellowstone) and Todd Farmer (Jason X) certainly doesn't help. There's nothing here that we haven't seen too many times before. Like the Pangs' earlier The Eye 2, a weak script leads to weak execution. Enough so, that the Pangs weren't involved when re-shoots were required. Cinematographer David Geddes (Halloween: Resurrection) creates a nice American Gothic vibe, with Saskatchewan standing in for North Dakota.
The cast is solid for a genre film, with Dylan McDermott and Penelope Ann Miller as the parents, Kristen Stewart as the teenage daughter, Dustin Milligan as the daughter's friend, and John Corbett as a mysterious farmhand (at least until the final act, where Corbett's acting goes over the top). Evan and Theodore Turner as the toddler aren't cutesy and really seem to be responding to something that only they can see.
Unless by the numbers horror films are your thing, my suggestion is to avoid it. If you're a Pang Brothers completist, wait for the video release.
The Pang Brothers (Bangkok Dangerous, The Eye, Ab-normal Beauty) make their first American film, but it's entirely by the numbers and does no credit to the Pangs or producer Sam Raimi (director of the Evil Dead and Spider-Man films).
A troubled family moves from Chicago to a sunflower farm in rural North Dakota. The house has a history of people disappearing while living in it, and soon the teenage daughter and toddler son begin to see and experience things that no one else does.
Directors Oxide and Danny Pang at their best know how to terrify an audience with creepy images and sounds. Unfortunately, this film doesn't represent them at their best. For their first US film, they play it far too safe and the pacing is too slow to sustain any tension. Except for their names in the credits, there's nothing that would indicate it's one of their films. The unimaginative script by Mark Wheaton (Firestorm: Last Stand at Yellowstone) and Todd Farmer (Jason X) certainly doesn't help. There's nothing here that we haven't seen too many times before. Like the Pangs' earlier The Eye 2, a weak script leads to weak execution. Enough so, that the Pangs weren't involved when re-shoots were required. Cinematographer David Geddes (Halloween: Resurrection) creates a nice American Gothic vibe, with Saskatchewan standing in for North Dakota.
The cast is solid for a genre film, with Dylan McDermott and Penelope Ann Miller as the parents, Kristen Stewart as the teenage daughter, Dustin Milligan as the daughter's friend, and John Corbett as a mysterious farmhand (at least until the final act, where Corbett's acting goes over the top). Evan and Theodore Turner as the toddler aren't cutesy and really seem to be responding to something that only they can see.
Unless by the numbers horror films are your thing, my suggestion is to avoid it. If you're a Pang Brothers completist, wait for the video release.
Comments:
Post a Comment
