What Do The Critics Say?

"The Messengers is still worth seeing for the strength of its first half and for the consistently solid performances." Jim Hemphill REELCOM "With 'The Messengers', the Pang brothers devise scenes so scary that they stain the imagination and never scrub out." Matt Zoller Seitz NEW YORK TIMES "The first half is very well done, making it one of the best haunted house movies since The Grudge." Kevin Carr 7M PICTURES "The worst part of this film is its (lack of) advertising; don't let the studio's lack of faith in their own ghost story ruin a clever little thriller for you." Kevin A Ranson MOVIECRYPT "J-horror, a term for Japanese movies about mute ghost children with staring problems, finds a peculiar match in "The Messengers". The American product is not a remake of a Japanese film, but its ambiguity, slow pacing and ghost-child lore fit in with "The Grudge", "The Ring" and "Dark Water". Like those movies, its sustaining of a single muted tone means that it's absolutely humourless. But the movie works better than its predecessors because The Messengers' concise single-mindedness is built on a couple strong elements. The location (shot in Saskatchewan), an old farmhouse backed by green hillside and with a vast sunflower field in front of it, has an eerie, isolated prettiness." Mark Palermo THE COAST

"Directed by brothers Danny Pang and Oxide Pang, the Hong Kong duo behind 2002's effectively creepy "The Eye" (watch for a bad American remake next year), "The Messengers" achieves a few genuinely spooky moments, often by eliminating all but the ambient sound, making us feel the silence of the house." Eric D. Snider ERICDSNIDER "The visuals stick with you; a pair of mottled ghost-legs that appear under a sheet the mother is shaking out, for instance; and somewhere in The Messenger is a neat little metaphor about all the things a teenager sees and feels that no one wants to hear about." Ty Burr THE BOSTON GLOBE "Viewers who prefer to see blood splattering and internal organs being sliced and diced will be disappointed." Daniel M Kimmel WORCESTER TELEGRAM & GAZETTE "it's still the best movie Ghost House has released to date" Ethan Alter FILM JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL "These days "horror movies" usually mean lots of scenes of torture or disemboweling or both. What a surprise, then, to encounter "The Messengers" which is a neatly crafted, old-fashioned ghost story. Its roots in movies ranging from "Poltergeist" to "The Amityville Horror" are a bit too obvious, but it's equally obvious that this isn't one of those films where they designed the poster and only then came up with the movie. "The Messengers" is a small and spooky offering from the Pang brothers, introducing themselves to American viewers who may not have seen "The Eye" (which they're currently remaking) or "Infernal Affairs" (where their script was recently remade as "The Departed")." Daniel M Kimmel WORCESTER TELEGRAM & GAZETTE

The Inside Story "There is evidence to suggest that children are highly susceptible to paranormal phenomenon. They can see what adults cannot. They believe what adults deny. And they are trying to warn us." It was their real life brush with the paranormal that influenced directors and identical twin brothers Danny and Oxide Pang's enhancement of the story from page to screen. Remember the elevator scene in "The Eye"? "One time I saw this guy and he just walked into the elevator," recalls Danny. "I followed him and when I walked in, there was no one there. I was living on the 12th floor. From the 12th floor to the ground it was about 30 seconds. In my mind it was about an hour because I was really scared inside those 30 seconds." Oxide recalls, "it was around 1 o’clock in the afternoon. I saw the shadow of a person walking but it was only the shadow. I can see the shadow but no person and it wasn’t only me. I saw it for about a minute walking on the road and then I asked my friend, `can you see that?’ And he could. So the time was really long. Those experiences gave us a concept." For screenwriter Mark Wheaton, that concept would expand the fear factor when it came to scripting "The Messengers". "One of the most interesting things about working with the Pangs comes from having a non-American perspective on a very traditional American setting; rolling plains, a Midwestern family farm, a small rural community," he said. "The Pangs are so visual, much of what they brought to the table in the script stage involved them simply penciling out how they’d shoot a certain scare or set piece on infinite scraps of paper, so the language barrier really wasn’t a problem. I’d submit script pages, we’d discuss how the Pangs would approach it visually, I’d rewrite the pages that night and a couple of days later, they’d come back with storyboards." For actor Dylan McDermott having twin directors who only spoke Cantonese, wasn't a problem. "Sometimes you don't want directors to speak English. I think if they trust you and then understand what you’re trying to convey, it's about the vision. These guys have a clear vision about what they wanted for this picture and it works." Producer Jason Shuman admits he has always been a big fan of the Pang Brothers. "I have been a huge fan of the Pangs for years and when I heard they were looking for an American project, were interested in doing a ghost story and were extremely excited about the prospect of working with Sam Raimi, I knew we had the ingredients. They came and added what I like to call 'Pang vision', their sense of style, horror and way of creating tension that’s completely distinctive. They really have a symbiotic mind. They can be together and you can ask them a very detailed question and they don’t even need to look at each other. They took the story in the script and they kept working with Sam and the writers and talent and together they created this interpretive vision we’ve never seen." "Spider-Man" director Sam Raimi says their vision "is a way of approaching horror that’s fresh in an overworked genre. What they have to offer is that fresh perspective. Both bring an incredibly unique talent that can’t be defined by the norm." Directors Danny Pang and Oxide Pang say they "were thrilled at the prospect of working on a Hollywood film, particularly with Sam Raimi, whom they had admired for years." Those smart enough to take a look at "The Messengers" will find it is vastly different from the so-called horror crap that has been dished out over the last decade. Danny says they told Raimi "we just wanted to put a greater scare element in the movie, but at the same time try and make it logical." "Our style is always about the silence because we find that the really scary aspects always come from the silence," adds Oxide. "We don’t think it is scary when there is so much sound, when it comes from so many directions, so many people. To us, what is scary is when you are alone and the room is completely quiet. We didn’t need the rain for effect. We didn’t need to have the electricity go off. We didn’t want to see all the effects that you see in horror movies. We didn’t want it all to happen at night." Producer William Sherak found the Pang's approach "most alluring and unnerving. When you say horror you automatically think nighttime. What they are doing is making the daytime scary. At nighttime, turning on the lights is a way out of the fear. But in the daytime, the lights are already on so to speak so there is nowhere to go. If we can tap into people’s basic fears in the daytime with the lights on, we can turn the horror genre on its head." Penelope Ann Miller, who plays Roy’s wife Denise, found the Pang's dual directing and editing intriguing. "We’d shoot one scene in the morning and it would be Danny directing and the next scene, in the afternoon or the next day, it would be Oxide. They are very precise where they want your head and look to be, like a photo shoot, not too many head or eye movements. Because they are editors as well, they are editing while they are shooting and they know where their cuts will be." Did she have any communication problems? "They like to speak in proverbs and they use them a lot," Miller recalls. "They believe you have to throw away all of your preconceived ideas about working with them or any director and trust them. I was really impressed in the end with their instincts about when a scene works and when it doesn’t." John Corbett who plays a drifter who the Solomons befriend after hiring him to work day labor on the farm, says the Pang brothers have "great sensibilities and even though I’m sure they’re completely different in many ways, when they’re both together and I’m talking to them I liked to think of them as sort of one being split in two." So what is "The Messengers" about? "This is a ghost story about a family who moves into this house that’s haunted and the girl is pretty much the only one who’s being affected by these supernatural beings and no one else believes her," says rsing star Kristen Stewart. "It is crazy because these things are attacking my character and no one else has ever seen them." There is in fact another witness. Her 3 year old brother Ben, who she realizes has always seen them but he doesn’t speak. "My character is trying to figure it out and thinks maybe she is crazy, maybe none of this is really happening and she’s been going through a lot and this is how it is manifesting itself," explains Stewart. Jess's problems are compounded further by the fact that her parents no longer trust her. Penelope Ann Miller who plays Jess's mother Denise notes, "She sees her daughter as being overly dramatic and wanting to go back to Chicago and I think, on some level, maybe feels she’s failed her as a parent. There’s a real dance going on between us and in suspense, a horror film, there’s a lot of character driven dramatic content that you don’t usually see." Dylan McDermott who plays father, Roy can relate to what his on-screen daughter is going through. "I was a mess when I was a kid. It is complicated when kids become teenagers, a lot of angst and a lot of emotion." The family moves to a rundown farm in North Dakota where the previous owners cropped Sunflowers for their seed. The contrast in the film between the dark ominous farmhouse and the idyllic field of Sunflowers adds to the 'feel' of the film. The farm used in the film is actually in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. It required the planting of sixty five thousand plants. "The sunflowers were really the first tremendous project off the top that we had to think about because they were such an enormous element in this movie," says Production Designer Alicia Keywan. "So big that we had to have at least three plans of attack that we could shoot them on the day we wanted and have the look we were trying to achieve. We had to find the field, plant the field and that required a lot of research, checking into the soil, finding out if it would work at all, researching the different types of sunflowers, what height they would grow to at what times of year." The success of the Sunflower crop plays an important part in the life of the Solomon's because they are more than just a colorful, extravagant prop. They are the Solomons second chance. Another standout in the film is the Crows. "They are a very eerie bird," notes Producer Sherak. "You always wonder whether or not they are protecting the Solomons, warning them, or something more sinister. They are a very smart bird and that definitely comes across." Production Designer Alicia Keywan admitted that she finds "the birds very scary. Who didn't see Hitchcock’s (1963 horror classic) "The Birds". Birds will always have that connotation for me. They’re quite spectacular." Corbett revealed he was terrified of the Crows. "I was really nervous having them around my face because there are a couple of scenes where they attack and you can lose an eye quickly with a little peck," Corbett said. "I’m not a fan of birds anyway because I had a parrot that almost took my finger off a couple of times. So they gave me a bird double, Petr Staka, and he is used to having them crawl all over him." In fact the birds used in "The Messenger" are not crows. They are Ravens. "They have these big beaks that are long and thick and strong necks and talons," says Staka before adding, "a predator like an eagle or a hawk." The Ravens, imported from the Czech Republic, are owned and trained by Ota Bares from Prague. Bares, whose birds have appeared in "The Black Dahlia" and "Cold Mountain" says, "says they are loyal and friendly birds remembering things for a long time and can even recognize a former owner after 10 years." "There are a lot of metaphors in this movie," says McDermott. It’s American Gothic, the farm, the sunflower crop, the crows, the pitchfork, the one-time dream of the farmer making it, struggling as the farming industry is dying off. It’s a great dynamic." Synopsis

A former Chicago-based family comprising Roy, his wife Denise, their teenage daughter Jess, and young son Ben are trying to put the hard times behind them. Part of their healing is a move from big city living to a quieter, picturesque area in North Dakota where they have purchased a farm. It's a tough move for everyone except Ben, who is intrigued by what he sees in the house. What the family doesn't know is that the farmhouse has a tragic past. It seems that the previous owners just up an disappeared. Jess quickly becomes convinced that the house is haunted after a terrifying incident while she's alone there with her three year old brother Ben. Because he can't articulate what he's seen, Jess's story is met with skepticism by both the police who respond to her 911 call and, her parents. Jess turns to her friend Bobby for help. It leads to Jess discovering what is within the farmouse.

The Verdict "There were times while I was watching the Pang Bros "The Messengers" that I truly felt spooked. This film is an honest interpretation of what a horror movie should be. "The Messengers" doesn't rely on chainsaws, decapitation, insufferable cruelty perpetrated on hapless victims nor bloodied violent confrontations, instead it uses images that terrorize the mind. It all works well. Extremely well. "The Messengers" will probably end up being missed by most cinemagoers, and that's a real pity. Kristen Stewart, who starred alongside Jodie Foster in "Panic Room" is very believable as troubled teenager Jess. Twins Evan and Theodore Turner give, for their age an exceptional performance as three year old Ben. The SFX and CGI imaging featured throughout "The Messenger" certainly achieve their purpose. Well worth a look at if you're a big fan of the horror genre. One for those who longed for the days of no-nosense, effective horror films. Recommended 3 1/2 STARS." Cast & Crew Bytes "THE MESSENGERS" stars .......
Golden Globe winner Dylan McDermott ["In The Line Of Fire", "Wonderland", "Runaway Jury" and "The Mistress of Spices"]; 1991 Chicago Film Critics Association Award Penelope Ann Miller ["Kindergarten Cop", "Chaplin", "Carlito's Way" and "Along Came a Spider"]; John Corbett ["Dinner Rush", "Serendipity" and "Raise Your Voice"]; William B Davis [TV's "21 Jump Street", "The X Files" and "Smallville"]; Brent Briscoe ["Mulholland Dr", "The Majestic", "Waking Up In Reno" and "Good Cop, Bad Cop"]; Dustin Milligan ["The Long Weekend", "The Final Destination" and "Slither"] and Kristen Stewart ["The Safety of Objects", "Panic Room", "Catch That Kid" and "Zathura: A Space Adventure"] as Jess.
"THE MESSENGERS" was .......
directed by 2000 International Critics' FIPRESCI Award winners Oxide Pang Chung & Danny Pang ["Bangkok Dangerous", "The Eye" and "Re-cycle"]; screenplay by Mark Wheaton ["The Messengers"]; story by Tod Farmer ["Jason X"]; art direction by Ken Watkins ["The Wrong Guy", "In Too Deep" and "Saint Ralph"]; costume design by Mary Hyde-Kerr ["Fugitives Run" and "Santa's Slay"] and Cathy McComb ["Conquest", "Something More" and "Double Frame"]; production design by Alicia Keywan ["Bride Of Chucky", "Angel in a Cage" and "Wrong Turn"]; cinematography by 2006 Leo Award winner David Geddes ["A Visit from Captain Cook", "Ernest Goes to School" and "Halloween: Resurrection"]; original music by Joseph LoDuca ["Messenger", "Brotherhood of the Wolf", "Irene's Last Call", "The Nazi Hunter" and "Boogeyman"]; produced by 2001 George Pal Memorial Award winner Sam Raimi ["The Evil Dead", "Hard Target", "Timecop", "Boogeyman" and "The Grudge 1 & 2"], William Sherak ("Darkness Falls"), Jason Shuman ("Four Dogs Playing Poker") & Robert G Tapert ("Darkman"). Who's Who?

Kristen Stewart Dylan McDermott Penelope Ann Miller John Corbett Evan Turner Theodore Turner William B Davis Brent Briscoe Dustin Milligan Jodelle Ferland Michael Daingerfield Tatiana Maslany Shirley McQueen Anna Hagan Blaine Hart Graham Bell Kaitlyn McMillan Peter Scoular

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Jess Roy Denise Burwell Ben Ben Colby Price Plume Bobby Michael Rollins Police Officer Lindsay Rollins Mary Rollins Doctor Charlie Jim Nurse Deputy

Run Time 90 minutes Rated M [AUST] Copyright ©2007 - Columbia Pictures - All Rights Reserved ©1999-2010 All Rights Reserved - Protected by Australian & International Copyright. Trademark Laws Apply.