The Messengers say little

By Frank D'Adamo
Collegian Staff
February 7, 2007

Have you ever encountered a child pointing at something and not known what it was? It is believed that children have the ability to see things that we can’t. In The Messengers, a child can see supernatural things that other family members cannot observe... at first. Progressively, the daughter begins to think she isn’t exactly in the safest house in this unimaginative and unmemorable horror flick.

The Messengers is directed by the Pang brothers and stars Dylan McDermott, Kristen Stewart and Penelope Ann Miller. The plot is that the Solomon family moves into a farmhouse that doesn’t have the best reputation. The 1-year-old son begins to point to things that appear around the room that no one else sees, and the first person to see what he sees is his sister, Jess (Stewart). Throughout the movie, Jess is trying to prove that there are strange phenomena in the house, but her parents don’t believe her because of her “troubled past.”

The title of this film is totally misleading. The spirits are supposedly “the Messengers,” but the only clichéd message given was, “Get out!” Another weakness for The Messengers that caught my attention was its unoriginal plot. While watching the movie I noticed that I’ve seen this before. It reminded me too much of a cross between The Birds (1963) and the 2005 Amityville Horror remake. The Messengers reminded me of The Birds because of the creepiness of the crows preying on the family and attacking them. The reminiscence of Amityville Horror is because the spirits randomly come out of nowhere to get a scare out of the audience.

The questions that were finally answered were absolutely pathetic as well.All that was said was how Jess had a troubled past, and now she’s seeing things; it’s only a cry for help because of her past. The problem with her past was a dilemma, but the way that it was carried out in the storyline was that she was some crack addict who is going through severe withdrawal.

Due to lack of storyline ideas, I highly doubt that this movie will be remembered not only as a horror, but as a movie in general. It is a great disappointment. The only message that should have been given is to the Pang brothers — “Be more original.”

dadamof1@lasalle.edu