There are three things that every horror movie needs in order to startle an audience: crescendos, blurred figures and sudden, loud noises. The Messengers has these things, but it unfortunately lacks the basic components required to make a good film: quality acting and plot.
After a few hard years in Chicago, Jess Solomon (Kristen Stewart) and her family move to an isolated farm in North Dakota. While Mr. Solomon (Dylan McDermott) plants his fields of sunflowers, Jess and her silent young brother, Ben (Evan and Theodore Turner), are the only witnesses to the frightening events that have begun to plague their new home. Jess's complaints about whispers in the night, spontaneous living room destruction and greedy, grabbing hands emerging from dark corners are dismissed by her mother (Penelope Ann Miller) as attention-seeking ramblings. Only the mysterious farmhand, John (John Corbett), seems to give Jess's claims any credence. As Jess pieces together the upsetting history of her new home and its previous occupants, she begins to fear for the safety of her family.
Each of the lead actors has received acclaim for past performances, but it's doubtful that they will be getting any for this film. They take shuddering breaths at the appropriate times, but none of the actors manage to make their characters into anything more than two-dimensional genre stereotypes. The only performance that is memorable at all is Corbett's, and that's just because after his hippie-ish stint on Sex in the City, he is a strange choice for the role. William B. Davis is underused as a banker from the nearby town. Davis was the embodiment of evil for nearly a decade as the Cigarette Smoking Man on The X-Files, but in this film he was relegated to only a couple meaningless scenes.
More annoying than the boring acting is the heavy-handed symbolism. Crows are everywhere in the film, perching menacingly on the roof, ruthlessly stealing the family's sunflower seeds and ferociously attacking unsuspecting victims. There are as many shots of the crows as of Jess's panicked face. They represent (duh) the impending doom that stalks the Solomons throughout the film. In order to survive, each member of the family must overcome his or her own issues and learn to trust and listen to each other. What a totally deep metaphor for the struggles and hardships of modern family life!
The obligatory shocking revelation near the climax of the film isn't very twisty at all -- moviegoers with any sense will have probably made the connections long before the moment of truth. The Amityville turn toward the end is frustrating, as if the filmmakers suddenly decided that they needed a clean explanation for all the bone-clinking and chain-dragging that goes on throughout the film.
The Messengers runs at an hour and a half, but it feels much longer. The unimpressive surprise is merely a portion of the thoroughly uninspired plot to this film. Aside from the bit about the sunflowers, this story has been told countless times before, and the Pang Brothers, as directors, bring nothing more than an Asian horror-style ghost boy to the table. If you're in for a fright around Valentine's, save your money and make a trip to the video store.
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