There are a few decent jolts in The Messengers, but every one of them is accompanied by a cheap freak-out on the soundtrack so you know to be decently jolted.
Though the Pangs prove culturally adaptive on a visual level, they seem completely clueless as to the tonal modalities of Mark Wheaton's admittedly undercooked, all-American script.
The trouble isn't just that this haunted-house story, written by Mark Wheaton and directed by Hong Kong filmmakers Danny and Oxide Pang, is both formulaic and derivative. It's that it's completely free of atmosphere, the very thing that their 2002 "The Eye" had in such creepy abundance.
There are a few decent jolts in The Messengers, but every one of them is accompanied by a cheap freak-out on the soundtrack so you know to be decently jolted.
Like too many horror pictures, The Messengers becomes more boringly prosaic as it goes along, and there's an 11th-hour plot twist so dumb and poorly articulated that it destroys the movie. That's a shame, because shot for shot, the Pangs might be the most terrifying filmmakers alive.
Like too many horror pictures, The Messengers becomes more boringly prosaic as it goes along, and there's an 11th-hour plot twist so dumb and poorly articulated that it destroys the movie. That's a shame, because shot for shot, the Pangs might be the most terrifying filmmakers alive.
It's a little sad that The Messengers is ultimately a good candidate for burial in a toxic waste dump because there are some good elements contained herein.
