OK, this is kind of a stupid review thread -- as I have not actually seen this film yet -- but I will beg Nixon’s indulgence on this one, and I will try to see it soon.

Anyway, I’ve got a little script on these boards called “The Farm”, and J.D. raises the point (which has not escaped me) that there are remarkable similarities between the new film “The Messengers” and my own story.

We’ve got an isolated farm with a haunted past and a mysterious stranger.  From what I've read, it also has a mute child.  The whole sunflowers angle seems a bit absurd, though.

My own thread is getting out of hand, but I would really like to have a discussion of this amongst those members of the board who might care to offer some opinions.

The point of this thread is NOT to make “ripoff” claims -- I am sure it is coincidental, as neither I nor they invented this somewhat gothic scenario -- NOR is it to garner more reads for my script.

I swear I am not trying to be selfish that way.

What I am asking is for people who have actually seen this film to hop off the fence and post a review.  Is the movie good or sucky?

And if you have read my script, I would really, really appreciate a comparison.  How alike or dissimilar do you find these two stories?

Thank you for reading my little ramble here.  Any thoughts would be great.  I’ll post my own thoughts once I’ve had a chance to check it out.

You know, when I first saw the trailer, I immediatly thought of The Farm; I even was about to pm you about it. When the movie gets to my country I'm gonna check it out, despite the sucky reviews.

I just rewatched the trailer a couple of times here: http://www.movie-list.com/trailers.php?id=messengers

While there are a couple of similarities there, The Farm seems to be a different story. This one is exploiting the haunted house aspect and going big time into investigation and constant J-horror-like special effects. The Farm is more of a character piece which some freakish moments.

I don't think it'll be a huge deal. I'm sure I don't know whatever their big twist is, but having watched enough horror movies of this nature, I don't think it'll tread on your property.

Quoted from George Willson I don't know whatever their big twist is...

J.D. put it onto my thread, and IMDB has some stuff, too.

Like I said, we are talking spoilers here:




It starts off with a family getting killed.  Then a new family arrives at the farm.  Weird stuff happens.  A mysterious "stranger" shows up.

Long story short -- it turns out the stranger killed the original family, and in the end, the ghosts kill the stranger guy.

However, I have also read that the plot is filled with screamingly large plot holes, lots of J-Horror (which people are kind of "over", you know?), and the reviews have been mostly negative.

Hopefully it will sink fast and be quickly forgotten.

I'm gonna try to see the film this weekend with Ross.

Hey Bert.

While I haven't seen the movie, I have read The Farm and thanks to your spoilers and the reviews over at http://www.rottentomatoes.com, I think I'm entitled to make an educated comparison.

I have to admit. The stories are alike. More alike than I would prefer had I written The Farm.

Nevertheless, I'm sure this is chock full of cheap jump scares, paper-thin characters, and gratuitous special effects that have all been seen before in previous PG-13 ghost flicks. I doubt it has the strong character development and family chemistry that The Farm had. And, of course, there's no evil-eyed razor-fingered teddy bear, spectrally-possessed cat cadaver, or combine amputation, hehe. They could've never thought of that stuff ;D.

Despite the similarities, coupled with the fact that Rotten Tomatoes called this a "derivitive ripoff of countless other horror movies", I'd be proud to know that you wrote your script two years before this thing came out and managed to avoid the mistakes Hollywood writers being paid millions could not and come up with something original and pretty damn decent.

So yeah, I wouldn't give it any thought.

After reading all this, I might have to check this out. I never thought of The Farm when I saw this thing advertised but given the comparisons here, I'm definitely curious. Perhaps I'll wait til it's on DVD.

For the record, if you read about Ultraviolet, it reads scarily similar to the idea behind the Fempiror Chronicles. You better believe I got that one as quick as possible. Fortunately the plot was miles away from Fempiror and it sucked, to boot. I plan on catching this one sooner than I would otherwise on video just to see how it compares. After all, if we catch mistakes in this film that yours might actually make, maybe we can learn a thing or two and fix it.

SPOILER ALERT (just to make sure)---




The Messengers was bad. Not really bad, but I wish I hadn't paid to see it in theaters. The music in the beginning and end was really cool, though. The camera angles were extremely close and sometimes disorienting. The ending was pretty disappointing and the jerky kid crawling on the ceiling with all the popping noises made me say "oh, gross" really loud in the theater. Lots of predictable jump-scenes. Predictable "parents don't believe me!" Pouty teenager (Kristen Stewart) with a troubled past, but I was impressed with Kristen Stewart later. There's a scene in the middle where she breaks down after being terribly scared, realizing she can't explain to her parents, and she crumbles on the floor and cries. Believable. The little boy was cute. Sunflowers were really out there.. but it added to the mood: outside the house is all bright and flowery, while inside the house is dark and scary.

And Cigarette Smoking Man had a couple of short scenes too!

Either way, a Japanese horror film covered in American cliches to the point it's only recognizable if you've seen other American remakes (like the Grudge 1, 2 and others) but with cool theme music.

Well, this movie isn’t all that bad.  In fact, I suspect I might have liked it more had I not been so desperately looking for faults.

The sets look great, actually, and as Impulse pointed out (thanks for the comments, kiddo), the music is pretty much top-notch throughout, some of it with the same Celtic feel I had envisioned for my own story.

This film must have 20 other movies in it, and at least half of them J-horror.  Apparently, there is nothing scarier to the Japanese than herky-jerky blue children skittering about -- that, or mysterious, recurrent mildew stains on the walls.

But most of the  jumps to be had in this film come compliments of the soundtrack, with volume-boosting jolts letting you know when to be frightened, in case you’ve missed it.

And, like most horror, the storyline is not built for close inspection.  We go from barren tundra to lush fields filled with sunflowers by way of a 30-second montage, and apparently, our ghosts simply hibernate during those intervening months for benefit of the story.  All the while, the object of their vengeance is living right there amongst them.  What on earth are they waiting for?

So I’ve got that going for me.  The Farm takes place over two days, lending the story greater urgency and momentum.  I’ve got some holes to fill, but at least I don’t have that one.

And “Messengers “ hinges on the daughter’s amazingly improbable powers of recollection.  It is impossible, frankly, that she should remember a key photograph at the exact time and place she remembers it.  That kind of bugged me, but this is horror, and none of that really kills the story unless you start asking questions, and most viewers do not.

In the end, the two stories (Farm and Messengers) are quite different, although they do share a similar template, and unfortunately --

**Spoilers Again**

-- they dovetail towards a very, very similar climax.  In “Messengers”, the cellar floor turns into some kind of black goo, and the dead family rises up from the goo and pulls the bad guy down into the depths.  Exactly why the cellar floor turns into black goo is… well…a lot of stuff in this movie just “happens”, you know?

The climactic scene for Farm is darn near the same thing, only outside, in the snow.  It’s a little more organic, springing from the action at hand as opposed to random weirdness, and is actually foreshadowed in the story, but you do not realize it until the end.  But all of that notwithstanding, I suspect it would look very much like it does here, which kind of sucks.

So that’s my ramble -- as much for myself as anybody else, I suppose.  Thanks for your comments, James.  You usually say the right thing, and while this time is no exception, once you’ve seen it you know that I’ve still got some fixes to make.

Hey Bert, did you ever think that maybe Kazzurie cashed in on your script without notifying you? :o

But it appears to be just a coincidence...

Yea bert Yours is way creepier.

The parents felt really flat to me in the story.

And did you even notice the smoking man rol? "WE HAVE ANOTHER OFFER FOR YOU"
Then he comes back to check on that offer. Then only to never return.

BUT THEN we get him in the flash backs with Jason, offering him a deal to sell the farm?!!

WTF, if the farm was abandoned for 6 years, and this new smo of a family buys it. WHY THE FUCK DOESNt SMOKING MAN HAVE THIS BOUGHT ALREADY?

And tell me why for the love of God, was the father gone ALL OF THE SUDDEN when jason goes crazy? He is there every fucking day, yet the day jason gets attacked by crows, he magically is just not home anymore?!?

Then he just shows up with no explaination of where he was.

Then we have the loose reason to kill again" He thinks it his family leaving again"

So lame...

And what fucking message does this family have to say? Revenge? *cough* They didnt say shit lol.

The famr is for sure deeper in story then the messengers. Hopefully they wont yours is a knock of this story.