Starring: Kristen Stewart, Dylan McDermott, John Corbett
Studio: Columbia Pictures 19061
Video: 1.85:1 enhanced for 16:9 widescreen, color, 1080p HD
Audio: English Uncompressed 5.1, English DD 5.1, French DD 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, English, French
Extras: “Exhuming the Messengers:” 7 short behind-the-scenes featurettes, Commentary track by cast and filmmaker
Length: 90 minutes
Rating: ***(*)
I give this one extra credit for not being your usual haunted-house movie. Part of that is due to the two directors: a pair of identical twins from Hong Kong – the Pang Brothers! This is their first English-language film, and the actors reveal in the featurettes that their English wasn’t that good, but they used the storyboards and sign language for making the most of their points. I liked their avoidance of showing everything like so many scary movies today. They prefer to use long and slow buildups to seeing something scary, and then perhaps such a brief glimpse that you’re not certain of what you really saw after all.
The husband and wife of a family from Chicago has had a difficult two years with the husband being out of work and other problems. They put everything they have into an isolated sunflower farm in North Dakota. The house does look like a farm version of the Munsters should live there, but inside it’s not so bad – that is, until things start going bad and 16-year-old Jess and her little brother start seeing and experiencing things which the parents do not. The contrasts between the bright fields of yellow sunflowers and the dark dangers of the house interior are played up extensively. One encounter Jess experiences results in serious scratches for which she is taken to emergency. This incident has her parents questioning her sanity since she had evidently had some previous behavior problems.
Besides strange creatures inside the house, the farm is besieged by a flock of nasty crows who attack people – which will remind one of Hitchcock’s The Birds. Jess begins to do some sleuthing on her own in an effort to save her family from the dangers of the house. Things come to a climax with the family threatened not by the spirits from beyond the grave but by a living – though mad – person. The viewer is left with some questions about the spirits in the house and if it is no longer haunted after things are wrapped up. There are also some plot contradictions, such as Jesse not being able to open a basement exit when she is being attacked – an exit that she is shown opening and passing thru earlier.
But generally the film delivers its chills. The uncompressed surround track is a strong factor there, due to long stretches of silence or just floor creaks, followed by sudden loud sounds to shake one up. The detailed hi-res transfer provides a perfect feeling of the thoroughly lived-in character of the house (even though it was just built especially for the film). It also handles the sudden transitions from the bright and sunny fields outdoors to the dark house interior, and especially to the foreboding basement.
– John Sunier
