Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on February 2, 2007, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
The ghosts have more life than the humans in The Messengers, which comes billed as the U.S. feature debut of acclaimed Asian filmmakers the Pang Brothers, but is clearly, based on prerelease reports and comments by those involved, the product of any number of cinematic cooks. The result is less an infusion of the Far East aesthetic into English-language filmmaking than another exercise in what have become the familiar conventions of Hollywood chillers “inspired” by overseas genre features: skittering CGI spooks in place of more tangibly creepy specters played by flesh-and-blood performers, and ear-splitting musical stingers in place of the quiet chills that have distinguished the best work of the Pangs et al.
There are no “cat scares” to be seen here, thank goodness, but there are bird scares, as the rundown sunflower farm around which the film centers could clearly use a good scarecrow, among other things. Arriving at this indoor/outdoor fixer-upper, after a prologue dramatizing its awful history, is the Solomon family, consisting of father Roy (Dylan McDermott), mother Denise (Penelope Ann Miller), teen daughter Jess (Kristen Stewart) and toddler Ben (Evan and Theodore Turner). They’re hoping to make a fresh start following some serious family troubles in their previous Chicago home, most specifically an initially unrevealed crisis involving Jess. But whatever problems she had there pale in comparison to what awaits her once they’ve settled into the farmhouse: namely, serious poltergeist activity and grabby ghosts that lurk within the walls. Compounding Jess’ terror at their attacks is the fact that she can’t convince her folks that the revenants exist, since her parents can’t see them—until, toward the end, they can.
An inconsistency regarding the spirits’ behavior is one of the problems plaguing The Messengers: Are they malevolent, or the restless, justice-seeking victims of some greater evil? That confusion is compounded by a reshot sequence which, based on Jess’ subsequent dialogue, originally had her witnessing flashbacks to a young girl’s horrible fate, but in the new footage subjects Jess to the threat of a similar one. Perhaps initially some sympathy was intended to be generated for the ghosts, but as it stands they’re just white-skinned monsters. A few more dramatic acting moments for the youthful specters would have been especially nice, given that they’re played in their prologue/flashback guises by gifted young actresses Tatiana Maslany (Ginger Snaps: Unleashed) and the ubiquitous Jodelle Ferland (oddly cast as a young boy!).
The living cast do their best under the circumstances, with Stewart a convincingly haunted young heroine; Jess’ disclosure of her prior trauma is better-handled and more plausible than many such moments in past movies. McDermott does his best to invest his scenes with honest drama, but poor Miller is stuck with a sketchy role that gives her little to do. Similarly, not as much is done with John Corbett’s hunky drifter-turned-field-hand John as could have been; the way Denise looks at him upon their first meeting, and the way he looks at Jess in a later scene, suggest potentially dramatic/unsavory developments that go unexplored in favor of familiar revelations and mayhem at the movie’s climax.
There’s a listless overall feeling to The Messengers, a missing urgency that suggests the lack of a unifying vision. A few individual scenes deliver easy jolts, minor shivers or modest emotional impact, yet too many begin and end without advancing the story or developing the characters in a meaningful way. It plays as if the Pangs were working with a constantly changing script, and their attempts at measured terror were second-guessed during the editing and scoring stages. It’s hard to know, for example, who was responsible for one suspense scene that plays as a weird series of close-ups of Jess and Ben’s heads and faces, and even harder to figure out what they were thinking. The message ultimately delivered by The Messengers is that its directors, like its characters, might have been better off reconsidering their move.
