As we near the end of the month, we get to the final direct-to-DVD sequel of July. Sadly, there are still tons more to cover in other months, including Wargames 2, The Net 2.0 and Timecop 2- oy vey! What film is on tap for today? Why it's a direct-to-DVD prequel to a 2007 film that did mildly-well and had it's teen star get famous. Is that all that's required to get one of these things made? If so, that's extremely-sad. As part of Sam Raimi's Ghosthouse line, The Messengers was made by The Pang Brothers- a pair of siblings who have yet to make a good movie that I've seen. For the record, I've only seen Forest of Death (meh) and the remake of Bangkok Dangerous (feh). Anyhow, this film is not made by them, but is instead made by some guy I've never heard of before. Given how sub-par this film is, I'll probably end up seeing another 20 films by him in the next few years! The big problem with this film is simple: it's not a real prequel. A prequel, by definition, is a film set before the earlier events of a previous film that sets up the events to come. This film fails to do the latter, ending up making it feel like some sort of weird, side story without an ending. I'll have more to say in the review proper. Get out your Satanic farmers for my review of...
The film begins by showing a farm in a state of disrepair and malnourishment. The problem is simple: he can't afford a good irrigation system to keep the plants watered. As a result, they barely grow, thus making him barely break even. It's a lovely Catch-22, isn't it? The farmer- aka the evil assistant from Blade II and the detective from Cigarette Burns- lives with his wife and family, although things are strained. I hope you get emotionally-invested in them, because they're pretty much all you get for at least an hour! Hope finally shines for him when he decides to put up a scarecrow. I may not be a farmer, but that would be the third or fourth thing that I would have done to begin with! There's more to it, however, as the land is also protected by some sort of weird, magical spell that can be tapped into. The results are far less interesting than they sound. His neighbor (aka the 'Jump to Conclusions' guy from Office Space) is the one who suggested it, so he gets all the blame...I mean, appreciation. Speaking of blame, the loan officer shows up and tries to take the farm, but our hero insists that they'll get enough money by the end of the season. He also makes sure to yell at him very loudly where people can hear. This won't end up biting him in the ass, I'm sure!
Things are beginning to look up for the family, so, naturally, everything has to start going wrong now. First, the loan officer from the bank is violently-killed, leading the police to suspect the guy who threatened him in a loud argument. Oops, guess I was wrong earlier. Second, our hero starts to have weird visions of a hot, young blond woman, setting up some extremely-pointless nude scenes that up the rating to 'R.' Oh good, I was worried that it would only be PG-13. There's nothing wrong with visions, except when they lead you to get a little 'too passionate' with your wife and hurt her. Like I said, things are still looking up, even if the guy is starting to act a little crazy. Like one of the posters' reviewers says 'It's The Shining gone country.' Yeah, that makes total sense. I can just feel the sense of isolation as he stands in front of a wide-open field in broad daylight! Meanwhile, the younger son starts to see weird things too, many of them related to the ugly-ass scarecrow in the field. Our hero continues to act more erratic and rely more on the advice of the neighbor than his wife. When he starts to suspect something is going on, he goes to see the man, only to be greeted by the blond. Just a hint to all you married readers: having hot, passionate sex with a blond next door is not good for the marriage.
After a whole lot of nothing and a pair of off-screen kills, things finally pick up...a little. We start to get hints that our hero is going crazy. He gets a book from the neighbor which contains ancient magical spells and is confronted in the attic by the neighbor...only to have the book be his Bible and nobody be there. This is all the push that the wife needs to leave him, choosing to move out. Years of poor, starving life and this is what is the final straw. This all leads up to one scene of him trying to get her to forgive him, only for her to tell him to leave before she stabs him. Ah, love is grand! Seriously, after over a decade and two kids, it's all going to be dead and buried, huh? All of this, of course, is a set-up for the finale in which she tries to leave with the kids. After making me wait and, quite frankly, being a little bitch about it, the scarecrow finally does something on camera. In terms of scarecrow-related terror, it's better than the guys in burlap masks from Dark Harvest, but much more than the awesome guys from Scarecrows. Just a reminder: Scarecrows was made in 1988 and this was made in 2009. After a sort-of interesting fight, the thing is killed and the family leaves. Um, you missed the whole point of making this prequel...
Country or not, this movie sucks! Was it so hard to make a film about a killer scarecrow, a Satanic farmer and black magic interesting? I guess I should expected nothing but the least from you guys, huh? The acting is alright, although it goes in the usual method of going way too loud when things go bad. There is a middle ground between painstakingly-dull and ridiculously-animated, you know. The movie just doesn't deliver on the ideas and thrills that it promises. Instead, it chooses to relegate it's scary stuff to the very last twenty minutes or so in a rushed and silly manner. Speaking of not delivering, this is not a real prequel! The set-up is simple: man runs farm, goes crazy and kills family. Instead, we get the first two, but not the latter. How are the ghosts upset by their violent and untimely deaths if they didn't die there?!? Maybe I'm being too picky though. Maybe this was all a set-up to The Messengers 3: The Other Scarecrow. Yeah, that's stupid. The movie is just not nearly as interesting or clever as it should be. Here's another thing for you: our hero of this movie is supposed to somehow turn into Sex and The City's John Corbett for The Messengers. Yeah, right...
Next up, we kick off August with the first Living Dead film on the list. This one is a low-budget zombie film shot in the inner city- yes, another one! Stay tuned...
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