The Messengers (PG-13, 2007)

At the center of THE MESSENGERS is Jess (Kristen Stewart), a teenager whose parents can't forget that she was responsible for a car accident that injured her baby brother. The family moves into a rural farmhouse to try to put their lives back together. Their new home is spooky, which increases Jess' feelings of anxiety and isolation. Meanwhile, mom Denise (Penelope Ann Miller), dotes on little Ben while dad Roy (Dylan McDermott), spends his days working outdoors. Only Jess and Ben can see the ghosts in the house, and Jess promises Ben she'll never to let anything happen to him. When their parents go out for a night, the place erupts in supernatural fury. But by the time the cops arrive and the parents get home, the house is set right and the adults think that Jess is seeking attention. Jess' relationship to the house is exacerbated by the arrival of shotgun-toting vagabond John (John Corbett), actually listens to Jess when she describes the creepy goings-on. "I know," he mumbles sagely, "that people sometimes, especially parents, don't know how to listen."

Another scary house movie, another family in crisis. Directors Oxide and Danny Pang made The Eye, among other films, which helped establish the genre's scratched-looking digital effects and moody haunting – the ghosts' faces are grey and pained, their movements scuttling in the usual J-horror way.

There are repeated opportunities for Jess to look afraid: her face half-obscured by shadows, her eye held in oppressive close-up, her willowy figure silhouetted at the top of the cellar stairs. Windows, doorframes, and cracks in doors and floors create internal frames that confine her, even as she and Ben peer beyond the camera, seeking to know what's watching them and so plainly means to hurt them. "What do you want from me?" she cries out when walking through the especially dark, huge barn. But The Messengers doesn't ever reveal what the house wants from her. In fact, it doesn't say much about anything that's new.

Studio: Sony Pictures
Director: Danny Pang
Cast: Dylan McDermott, Kristen Stewart, Penelope Ann Ann Miller
Genre: Horror
Run time: 84 minutes
Theatrical release: February 2, 2007
DVD release: June 5, 2007
MPAA Rating: PG-13
MPAA explanation: mature thematic material, disturbing violence and terror.