The Messengers Blu-ray delivers stunning video and audio in this fan-pleasing Blu-ray release
The Solomon family has left the fast paced life of Chicago for the secluded world of a North
Dakota farm. Amidst the tranquil sway of the farm's field of sunflowers, Jess, 16, soon realizes
how terrifying seclusion can be when she and her brother Ben, 3, begin seeing ominous
apparitions invisible to everyone else. When those specters become violent, Jess' sanity is
questioned — a double jeopardy for the tormented teen. Her troublesome past comes face to
face with the past of those who once lived in the house, a perilous confrontation that leaves her
believability in question with those she desperately tries to warn before it is too late.
Is there anything more self-defeating than a PG-13 Horror movie? Granted, Horror isn't about
gore,
and it's certainly not about language or nudity, but the trend in recent years to water films
down for wider audiences has been only, for the most part, to the detriment of the genre. For
every The Ring there are dozens of films like One Missed Call, The Eye, and The
Messenger. It's the latter that's the focus here, a prototypical PG-13 jump scare Horror film
that surpasses much of the dreck churned out in the name of packing teenagers into the theater
in
recent years, but by the conclusion of the brisk 90 minute runtime, there's little that makes this
one the least bit memorable. Directors Danny and Oxide Pang (The Eye, Bangkok
Dangerous,
Re-Cycle) have
crafted a passable pseudo-Horror picture in The Messengers, playing by the rules and
never going above and beyond the call of duty, crafting a passable time waster with a few good
elements that cancel out the bad, the result a wash of a picture that's neither a must-see nor a
must-skip.
What dark secrets do the messengers bear?
Father Roy (Dylan McDermott, In the Line of Fire),
mother Denise (Penelope Ann Miller, Kindergarten Cop), teenage daughter Jess (Kristen
Stewart, Twilight), and
toddler brother Ben (Theodore and Evan Turner) are moving from the big city to small-time North
Dakota to an isolated and run-down farm with a mysteriously dark history. No sooner do they
arrive than do Jess and Ben begin seeing and hearing oddities in the house and around the farm.
Creepy-cralwies the size of humans scurry about, bloody legs appear under the sheets, and
generally spooky noises fill the house from time to time. As it becomes clear that the
occurrences are more than random hallucinations brought about by the general creepiness of the
house and the adjustment to a new town, Jess must work to not only convince herself but her
parents that something may be terribly amiss. Meanwhile, new farmhand Burwell (John
Corbett), a drifter who appears on the farm and agrees to work for nothing but room and board,
works hard but seems to harbor some dark secret, and as pasts are revealed and connections
made, the family may find that they've moved into a home better left vacant.
Though a bit dull and not especially original, The Messengers is a particularly well-made
movie, a testament to the directorial skills of the Pang brothers. Though the film primarily relies
on style over substance, style works effectively only to a point in a film such as this, and the
brothers
do somehow squeeze a few ounces of tension and fear from the visuals alone.
Unfortunately, slick direction alone does not a movie make, and The Messengers falls
apart
beyond the superficial. Still, the picture manages to be stylish, atmospheric, and even downright
chilling in several scenes, but such fleeting moments are ultimately for naught in light of the
absence of a more compelling story. The lack of a more psychological
angle leaves the visual and aural jump scenes to fend for themselves, and while they can be
effective to a point, the lack of a more thorough supporting structure is ultimately the movie's
demise. Unfortunately, astute viewers familiar with formula will see the scares coming in plenty
of time to allow the effect to be dulled, ruining the movie's only real selling point. Still, the Pang
Brothers do show some promise here; hopefully fate will find them behind the camera with a
stronger shooting script to work with in the near future.
Aside from the doldrums brought on by the lack of a more purposeful story, The
Messengers is
another movie that starts off well enough and fades into oblivion soon thereafter, this time a
result of a middle act that's the definition of wash-rinse-repeat. Throughout the entirety of the
second act, The Messengers becomes an exercise in excess similarities as either Jess,
Ben, or both investigate creepy noises or odd occurrences in some darkened corner of the house
or surrounding farm, with the resultant find becoming only increasingly loud or revealing more of
the creatures, but never do such scenes serve much purpose or deliver anything beyond
superficial and fleeting chills. Once the third act arrives and the big secret is revealed, the film
has already worn out its welcome and the surprise is greeted more with a shrug than genuine
shock. The finale is as banal as they come, a by-the-numbers conclusion that plays out exactly
as expected with no wiggle room to even hint that there might be something different in the
film's final minutes. Ultimately, The Messengers is an unremarkable picture, a
middle-of-the-road experience that delivers exactly what's expected of it with only a collection of
average performances and above-average directing making it somewhat more palatable than
most other movies of this sort.
The Messengers creeps onto Blu-ray with a wonderfully film-like 1080p, 1.85:1-framed
transfer. The film opens with a brief yet crucial black-and-white segment that's nicely rendered
and well-defined, and save for a bit of banding, it makes for a solid visual introduction to the film.
The remainder is presented in color; the image is consistently crisp, strongly detailed, abundantly
colorful when need be, and the interior of the house is appropriately dreary, shadowy, and
chilling. Hardwood planks appear wonderfully textured, and accumulated crud in
between each one appears as if its been there for years, all the lint, dust, pebbles, and everything
in between them appearing lifelike down to the most minute detail. Likewise, facial detail is
generally extraordinary in close-up shots, the transfer revealing every pore, bump, and stubble of
facial hair with a brilliant real-world appearance. Distance shots of the exterior of the farmhouse
remain sharp and detailed across the entire frame. The greenery in said shots makes for the
strongest colors to be seen in the film, though several outdoor shots as seen during the
characters' several jaunts into town are strongly realized, too, with more in the way of additional
natural colors. Black levels are strongly rendered throughout, though detail seems lost within
their shadowy confines in several scenes. Flesh tones waver between a neutral shade and a
slight orange tint. The print is in generally pristine condition, save for a handful of white speckles
that randomly appear over a couple of random shots. Film grain is visible but not persistently so;
a thin layer that allows fine detail to remain intact is handsomely preserved over the entirety of
the film. All said, The Messengers makes for yet another attractive and film-like transfer
from Sony; its several flaws are minor and hardly worthy of more than a cursory mention and
minor downward adjustment of the score.
The Messengers crawls onto Blu-ray with an aggressive PCM 5.1 uncompressed soundtrack
that heightens the film's use of jump scare tactics considerably. Though not immediately evident,
the track ultimately engages the aural senses with a full-blown surround sound extravaganza that
practically plants the listener in the midst of the sunflower fields or in the creepy confines of the
dusty old farmhouse, the first such assault on the ears coming in chapter eight. Tight, rumbling
bass accompanies many of the more demanding and vigorous moments, and it's enough to
positively but not distractingly rattle the seat. Never is the bass or often accompanying surround
effects forced or overly pronounced; The Messengers features a balanced and satisfying
soundtrack, and the uncompressed presentation handles everything thrown at it with ease. Many
of the
"scarier" scenes create a seamless 360-degree sound field that's used to full effect; they deliver an
experience that's nothing short of sonic insanity, a mesmerizing cacophony of sounds swooping
about the listening area and recreating the locales and sound effects with precision. Strong dialogue
reproduction rounds out a superb uncompressed presentation.
The Messengers scares up a few extras for this Blu-ray release, the collection headlined
by a commentary track with Actress Kristen Stewart, Writer Mark Wheaton, Actor Dustin Milligan,
Visual Effect Supervisor Bruce Jones, and Producers William Sherak and Jason Shuman. The
quartet deliver a standard sort of commentary and, as expected of such a diverse field of
participants, it tends to wander from topic to topic without much cohesion. Nevertheless,
whatever topic material happens to be front-and-center, it proves rather interesting to a point.
Still, large group commentaries rarely work as well as more focused efforts, and this one is for
fans only. Exhuming 'The Messengers' (1080i, 37:12) is a seven-part feature that looks
at various aspects of the production. The segments are rather self-explanatory in title, and are as
follows: Pang Vision (6:33), Script Evolution (4:05), Constructing the
Set (6:29), Kristen Stewart, Rising Star (4:33), John Corbett: Unexpected
Villain (4:18), Meet the Crows (4:48), and Exploring Visual Effects (6:23).
Also included are 1080p trailers for The Grudge 2, Ghost Rider, Blood and Chocolate,
Catch and Release,
and
Stomp the Yard.
The Messengers is a fine but ultimately ineffective PG-13 Horror picture thanks not to the
lack of solid direction but instead the absence of a meaningful or otherwise compelling script. The
picture's reliance on jump scare tactics and loud noises at
inopportune times only reinforces that the movie is little more than a well-made carbon copy of
most any garden-variety PG-13 Horror picture of recent vintage, and as such, the project seemed
doomed from the start. Danny and Oxide Pang's direction proves one of few bright spots and it does
elevate the picture a few notches above the doldrums of the genre, the result a passable movie
that's neither memorable nor forgettable, a decent and typical example of the recent trend in
dumbed-down Horror. Sony's Blu-ray release, however, excels in spite of the movie's mediocre
quality. With a top-flight technical presentation and a decent supplemental section, The
Messengers earns a tepid recommendation as a buy for the right price, but comes easily
recommended as a solid rental.
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