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the-messengers
via Sony

A barn-burningly bad horror without a shred of originality buys the farm on streaming

Rural nightmares don't come much less interesting than this.

Stumbling upon a horror movie directed by the duo behind cult classic Korean terror The Eye that was produced by Sam Raimi, co-written by the mind behind fan favorite Jason X, and features names including Kristen Stewart and Tatiana Maslany among the cast is sure to generate interest if you come across it in 2022, but even the staunchest of horror supporters may be left crushingly disappointed once they’ve sat through 2007’s The Messengers.

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Like virtually every supernatural chiller, though, it proved to be bulletproof at the box office after recouping its thrifty $16 million production budget three and a half times over from theaters, but an 11 percent Rotten Tomatoes score and 44 user rating are hardly encouraging signs for a derivative run-of-the-mill frightener that doesn’t possess a shred of originality.

the-messengers
via Sony

A typical family unit relocate from the big city to try reset and rebuild their lives after the father’s long-term unemployment created financial issues, while the daughter’s drunk driving accident with her brother in the car continues to traumatize them both. Naturally, their rural abode was the sight of a grisly murder spree, and it doesn’t take long for haunting presences and ghostly apparitions to start making their presence felt on the new residents.

In spite of being irredeemably uninventive and completely bereft of such things as tension, atmosphere, and scares, The Messengers has laughed in the face of its paltry reputation to become a sizeable success on streaming. As per FlixPatrol, the deservedly derided backwoods nightmare has become one of the most-watched titles on Starz having spent 15 years withering in the shadows, although we suspect it won’t be long before it heads back to the land of irrelevance from whence it came.


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Scott Campbell
News, reviews, interviews. To paraphrase Keanu Reeves: Words. Lots of words.