The Messengers (2007) |
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General | Extras | ||
Category | Horror |
Main Menu Audio & Animation Trailer-The US vs John Lennon; Fur: A Portrait of Diane Arbus Trailer-Lucky You |
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Rating | |||
Year Of Production | 2007 | ||
Running Time | 86:42 | ||
RSDL / Flipper | No/No | Cast & Crew | |
Start Up | Ads Then Menu | ||
Region Coding | 4 | Directed By |
Oxide Pang Chun Danny Pang |
Studio
Distributor |
Roadshow Home Entertainment |
Starring |
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 |
Case | ? | ||
RPI | ? | Music | Joseph LoDuca |
Video | Audio | ||
Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) |
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Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | ||
16x9 Enhancement |
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Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
Jacket Pictures | No | ||
Subtitles | English for the Hearing Impaired | Smoking | No |
Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
Action In or After Credits | No |
After two years on the unemployment queue, Roy Solomon (Dylan McDermott) spends the last of his family's savings on a small, sleepy farm in North Dakota. The previous occupants of the home had disappeared mysteriously some years earlier and the Solomon's gradually come to realise that they had never really left the home. While Roy plants sunflowers with the family's new lodger Burr Rollins (John Corbett), his mute toddler son and teenage daughter (Kristen Stewart) begin to experience all manner of creepy goings on in the house. Needless to say, nobody believes her until they have their own experience.
The Messengers is another in the recent run of haunted house movies that owe a significant debt to J-Horror and Asian horror in general. This is hardly a surprise as the film also marks the first English language feature for cult Honk Kong directors the Pang Brothers (though the brothers have individually directed films that have significant English portions), who are probably best known for the The Eye series.
The film is a bit of a mixed bag. The story and dialogue are pretty weak and borrow heavily from previous haunted house flicks including The Amityville Horror and The Grudge. The acting is passable. The scares are well put together, but often don't fit in too well with the ongoing story. Where the film really shines is the cinematography and soundtrack. The film is beautifully shot, which really enhances the scary scenes. The soundtrack works on a number of levels to disconcert viewers. There is lots of intelligent foundation to build an ominous mood and plenty of high peaks to shock unwary viewers.
Though it succeeds to a reasonable extent as a shameless genre exercise, The Messengers is nothing original and probably won't bear repeat viewing even for fans of the genre. Rent this one before you consider buying it.
The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio and is 16x9 enhanced.
The video is quite sharp and looks particularly good in several artistically lit scenes. There is a very mild degree of film grain visible throughout. A good amount of shadow detail is visible and dark scenes look good.
The colour in the video is bold, but seems quite natural. The film uses a lot of simple colours to provide a striking look to the film, bright greens and yellows contrasting with earthy browns and black, and this look has translated well to DVD.
There are no noticeable MPEG compression-related artefacts in the video. Occasional small white film artefacts can be seen during the film, though never in significant number.
The film features English subtitles for the hearing impaired. The subtitles appear to be accurate and well timed based on the portion I sampled.
This is a single-layered disc.
Sharpness | |
Shadow Detail | |
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Overall |
The film features an English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) soundtrack and an alternative in English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s).
The dialogue is clearly audible throughout the film and appears to be synchronized with the video at all times.
The film features a rather routine, though effective, orchestral score that sits well in the mix and sounds crystal clear.
The sound design of the film is excellent. The surrounds are used in a very calculated manner to build the atmosphere of the film and enhance many of the scares. The subwoofer also gets an excellent workout at numerous points of the film, with plenty of subtle movement as well as the usual big thuds in the LFE track.
Dialogue | |
Audio Sync | |
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Surround Channel Use | |
Subwoofer | |
Overall |
There are no genuine extras on this disc (unless you consider generic animated menus and trailers for other films as extras).
Forced trailers for The US vs John Lennon, Fur: A Portrait of Diane Arbus and Lucky You precede the disc menu.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The Region 1 release features several extras not contained on the Region 4 release as well as a French Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track and subtitles. The missing features include:
A fairly routine J-Horror-inspired haunted house movie on a bare bones disc. Though The Messengers looks good and is reasonably well executed, it is a film that viewers will forget within the week. Rent before you buy.
The video looks very good, but film artefacts are occasionally visible. The audio is excellent; a well produced soundtrack given a very good DVD presentation.
Video | |
Audio | |
Extras | |
Plot | |
Overall |
Review Equipment | |
DVD | Sony Playstation 3, using HDMI output |
Display | Samsung 116cm LA46M81BD. Calibrated with THX Optimizer. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 576i (PAL). |
Audio Decoder | Pioneer VSX-D512. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials. |
Amplification | Pioneer VSX2016AVS |
Speakers | 150W DTX front speakers, and a 100W centre and 2 surrounds, 12 inch PSB Image 6i powered sub |