Horror Theater Video the messengers film review

Summer is here, which means the year is almost half over. If the year were to end today, The Messengers would have my vole as worst horror film of the year.

This is the first American film directed by China's Pang Brothers (Oxide and Danny). They have had great success in China with films such as Gin gwai (The Eye), Gin gwai 2 (The Eye 2), and Gwai wik (Re-cycle). These films were original, tense, well photographed and directed, everything The Messengers is not.

There is not one bit of originality in the screenplay "credited" to Mark Wheaton, who was rumored to be brought in at the last minute to do rewrites. I would hate to see the original script if this is was the finished product.

Here is the plot. Count on as many fingers and toes if you've heard this before. A couple, their teenage daughter, and young son leave the big city (here it's Chicago), due to a family crisis (here daughter gets into a car accident while driving father), to move miles away to the smallest town on the map, into a farm house that is so dilapidated you want to call the cast of ABC TV'S "Extreme Makeover", into a farm house where the Prelog shows a vague scene of a mother hiding her son from an unseen menace, the son of course running back to see his mother dragged into the basement, the son, instead of running out of the house as told, hides under the kitchen sink only to be discovered by the menace. No time is given as to when this happens, but the scene is filmed in black and white.

What makes this film even worse is the couple is played by Dylan McDermott ("The Practice"), and Penelope Ann Miller ("Carlito's Way", "Along Came A Spider"). Both of these actors go thru the entire movie on cruise control, showing little to no emotion no matter what's happening on screen. Miller's character doesn't even react when she sees the rundown house her husband dragged her to, or the standard horror film stain on the wall that keeps coming back after she cleans it, And you know what the husband wants to grow at his new digs, SUNFLOWERS. He wants to harvest Sunflower Seeds. He also takes in a drifter, played by John Corbett, who helps in getting rid of a batch of crows. The film couldn't even afford crows, so they used trained RAVENS. You don't have to know birds to see the noticeable difference between a crow and a raven. Corbett plays his role as if he's looking for another Greek wedding.

The only positive here is the acting of young Kristen Stewart playing the daughter. She puts on an acting clinic here, upstaging all of her more experienced cast mates. You might remember her as Jodi Foster's daughter in the film "Panic Room", but here her hair is longer and she is much sexier. To top it off, Ms. Stewart has TOP BILLING over McDermott, Miller and Corbett.

Do yourself a favor and take my message, avoid The Messengers.

My Rating- 1/2 star (for the acting of Kristen Stewart)