Box Office Movies -- The Messengers

For the Week Ending February 9th

• Directed by Oxide Pang, Danny Pang
• Produced by Lou Arkoff, Joseph Drake, Nathan Kahan, Jim Miller
• Written by Stuart Beattie, Todd Farmer, Mark Wheaton
• Starring Kristen Stewart, Dylan McDermott, Penelope Ann Miller and John Corbett
• Distributed by Sony Pictures Entertainment
• Release date(s) February 2, 2007
• Language English
• Budget $16 million
• Box Office Total $24,742,205

The Messengers is a 2007 supernatural thriller film. The plot of the film is about an ominous darkness that invades a seemingly serene sunflower farm in North Dakota, and the Solomon family is torn apart by suspicion, mayhem, and murder. The film was released on February 2. Although the setting of the film is in North Dakota, filming actually took place in the Qu'Appelle Valley near the small community of Abernethy, Saskatchewan. The graphic novel adaptation will be published in January 2007 by Dark Horse Comics, written by Jason Hall and illustrated by Kelley Jones. The Messengers is an atmospheric but derivative rip-off of countless other horror movies.

Synopsis
THE MESSENGERS, a thriller starring KRISTEN STEWART as Jess, DYLAN McDERMOTT and PENELOPE ANN MILLER as Jess' parents Roy and Denise Solomon and JOHN CORBETT as field hand John Burwell, 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.

Plot and/or Ending Details Follow
Spoiler warning:
At the movie's beginning, a frightened woman is with her son, telling him that he has to be strong and that everything is going to be okay. She hears something coming towards the door and makes her son hide under the bed. The door bursts open and something throws the woman against the wall. The son, terrified, runs out of the room and into his sister, who is also scared. She grabs him and runs down the stairs. The boy hides under a table, but his sister is caught and dragged away, down into the cellar. The boy runs into the kitchen and hides in a cabinet, but he is soon found and killed as well.

Five years later, a new family is moving into the house from the city, hoping to start a sunflower farm. The main character, Jess Solomon, is angry about having to move away from her friends. She once got into a car accident with her toddler brother because she was drunk, and he became a mute. Her brother, Ben, sees things the others cannot see...the past owners of the house. Jess' father, Roy, hires a man named John Burwell to work on his sunflower farm for him. The house always seems to have crows flying around it; some crows even attack Roy. Jess has an encounter with one of the ghosts, the mother, in the closet. She calls 911 and the authorities come, only to find a terrified Jess. They dismiss it as a false alarm, and Jess is in disbelief. She later finds out more details about the Rollins family that lived in the house and suddenly left, and sees a picture of them, with John in it. As it turns out, the man who killed the past owners of the house in a fit of madness is actually John, who was the head of the Rollins family, and now attacks Jess and her family. John's turn to insanity is caused by crows attacking him, representing the family's avengers. John calls Jess' mother, Denise, "Mary" and Ben "Michael," finally attacking Jess and Roy. John is absorbed into the cellar floor as the spirits grab him and pull him in.
Spoilers end here

MPAA Rating
PG-13, for mature thematic material, disturbing violence and terror.

Release Company
Columbia Pictures

Gendre
Horror/Suspense, Ghosts, Psychic Forces, Supernatural, Family Life, Farms, Psychic Powers

Official Movie Site
• The Official The Messengers Site