The
Messengers
Roadshow
R4
DVD
The Pang Brothers are highly respected
for their style and innovation; they began their career with Bangkok Dangerous
but really made their mark with the Asian classic “The eye” and its
In many ways this is an Asian Amityville
Horror, we have the look and feel of “The eye”, a strong dead seeking revenge
motif and the mandatory creeping and crawling ghosts.
The storyline is fairly straight forward,
city family beset with problems, including a difficult child, move to the
country to make good. The house is suitably rundown and the family dysfunction
is well portrayed. Quickly, however, the strangeness begin
and we get some superb shocks and jumps presented in a less than conventional
way and that’s what makes this film works. Rather than portraying the ghosts in
the more traditional western manner, we get a different approach with dead
children, crawling ghosts, hallucinations and mental disturbances.
There are certainly predictable plot
elements such as the welcome stranger who turns out to not be what he seems and
the overemphasis on the family and its problems. It may be my misanthropy
showing but I get a little sick of the constant harping on about family
difficulties and the need for them all to stick together. I am not sure if it
is because Sam Raimi is getting a little older (it
was sickening overdone in Spiderman 3 as well), but the sentimentality that
re-occurs throughout the Messengers takes away from the storyline and distracts
from its power. I also think the multiple producers on this film didn’t help
either and hence it ends up being a good rather than great film.
I would like to have seen the Pang
brothers given more freedom to experiment and believe that if that had occurred
this film would have been a lot better. This is still a very successful horror
film, it is beautifully filmed, has a moody and edge of your seat soundtrack
and many of its re-occurring motifs (such as the crows) create an impressive
visual experience, but it could have been so much more.
The Messengers is an interesting ghost
film with some nice twists and turns and a different visual style. It is
certainly worth a look.