And Another

Didn’t care much for the first Messengers, an unexciting little rural ghost story mostly directed by the Pang Brothers, until it was given to Eduardo Rodriguez for reshooting. The flick was the first real lead role for a pre-Twilight Kristen Stewart (the poor dear, only fifteen or sixteen, was subjected to the indignity of an unfortunate malady known to marketing science as Photoshopping Of The Breasts – this struck right around the same time as the DVD release, see exhibits A & B).

The Messengers, an Americanized, PG-13 take on the vengeful Japanese spirits then in vogue, stars Kristen (here “Jess”) in a story about a family leaving the big city for a new home in the countryside. A handyman (John Corbett) seems helpful at first before gradually being revealed as something more ominous, and the family is left doing detective work to unearth the strange history of their new home.

Cold Creek Manor, just four years earlier but feeling like more, also starred Kristen (here “Kristen”). This time, she appears in a story about a family leaving the big city for a new home in the countryside. A handyman (Stephen Dorff) seems helpful at first before gradually being revealed as something more ominous, and the family is left doing detective work to unearth the strange history of their new home. Also, Cold Creek Manor features Ray Paisley as Dink (It could be a dink – IMDb is unclear and I don’t remember the character).

Despite mediocre reviews, The Messengers took in a pretty solid $55 million worldwide take on a $16 mil budget, so here comes Messengers 2: The Scarecrow, straight to DVD today. Starring Norman Reedus, Claire Holt, and nobody from the first movie, it’s the U.S. debut from Danish director Martin Barnewitz, with a script from Todd Farmer, who wrote the story for the first Messengers, and also scripted the My Bloody Valentine remake and Jason X. Can’t say much for the trailer, which fills a third of its time with footage from the first film and ends up indicating pretty clearly that an evil scarecrow is responsible for the farm’s woes. All of this said, “The Shining goes country” (Screem magazine) is a compelling argument, though I suspect more entertaining a pitch than the movie probably merits.

According to Kristen Stewart’s IMDb page, she’s appearing soon in K-11. I didn’t even catch K-10! James Belushi no longer appears to be involved.