The horror film genre has been plagued by countless attempts at developing suspense through the manipulation of cheesy special effects, utterly ridiculous plotlines and laughable ghouls and ghosts. From the trailers, "The Messengers" appears to be just another haunted house tale, but shocking revelations expose that this horror film actually has something new to offer.
Credibility is generally an unattainable quality for horror flicks. Serial killer thrillers are about as close as they come to grazing the surface of real-life applicability. "The Messengers," however, has a delicately constructed plot yielding a most unexpected twist; there is more to this film than evil spirits and ghosts.
The setup seems typical enough. Roy (Dylan McDermott), the husband disillusioned with unemployment in the urban scene, sets off to return to his roots and grow sunflowers out in the country as his father did before him. He drags along with him his troubled teen daughter Jess (Kristen Stewart), toddler son Ben (Theodore and Evan Turner) and ever-so-loyal wife Denise (Penelope Ann Miller). Upon arrival, as one might expect, something just doesn't seem right in the house, not to mention the fact that from the outside it looks like one of the single most terrifying, isolated places on Earth.
Family dysfunction is highlighted throughout the film, including trust issues, abandonment and guilt, adding an intriguing flavor to the family plight. Due to a car accident caused by Jess' teenage drunk driving, young Ben hasn't uttered a word for quite some time. As more and more time passes, Ben begins to wander around the house staring up at the ceiling. Jess becomes more resentful about her disintegrated social life. A new face appears at the farm, Burwell (John Corbett), who eagerly offers to lend a hand with the harvest in exchange for room and board.
Then they appear.
Through the eyes of the children, monstrous creatures appear throughout the house. Delicately crafted scenes build suspense that is almost unbearable. The horror is not gratuitous. Each scene reveals something about the previous inhabitants of the house as well as something about the current family's dynamic, while of course scaring the living daylights out of the audience.
Cinematographically, the film is outstanding, utilizing subtlety, as well as chaos, effectively. Unfortunately, the acting could have been better, but in comparison with other movies in the genre, such as the recent "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning" (2006), the ensemble was nothing to sneeze at.
Most offensive, however, was Kristen Stewart's portrayal of Jess. Her inexperience is clear; she has only been involved in small roles, except for her part - identical to this one - as the daughter in "Panic Room" (2002). Her reactions seem a bit forced, but her interactions with Theodore and Evan Turner (both playing the role of the toddler Ben) make up for her incompetence during the suspenseful scenes.
Ben's character adds an incredible amount to the film. His facial expressions and interactions with the ghosts add humor and a dose of credibility to the supernatural story.
Unfortunately, much of what makes this an enjoyable film are things we have seen before. Frequent crow attacks on the husband and sunflower fields bring to mind Hitchcock's "The Birds" (1963), not to mention that the entire premise of the haunted-house-spiel harkens to "Amityville Horror" (1979). It is hard to compete with such classics, but these combined elements do in fact generate a surprisingly entertaining, modern horror flick.
The premise of "The Messengers" might not necessarily be unique, but its execution is excellent, yielding something infrequent in this decade - a horror film with just a hint of credibility.
