The Messengers (2007)

Dir. Danny Pang, Oxide Pang

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Dylan McDermott, Penelope Ann Miller, John Corbett 

At last! A horror movie that is actually scary! It seems like I’ve sat through an endless stream of duff horrors so far this year (though the total figure is actually closer to half-a-dozen). So far the scariest has probably been The Shining. It has just been topped by a film of which I had not previously heard. 

I will admit that the shocks are manufactured ones. They come from sudden movement and sound cues. The scary elements have been recycled from numerous other inspirations, from The Birds to Ringu. Also, the denouement is a let down, revealing the (somewhat mundane) truth of what actually happened to the previous inhabitants. But the setting is good – I had no idea that the creaky old farmhouse had been built especially for the film, or that the interior scenes were recorded on sound stages – the direction is inventive, the visual effects good, and the cast are believable (until the aforementioned denouement).  

The action surrounds the Solomon family. After struggling in Chicago father Roy (Dylan McDermott) relocates them back to his home state of North Dakota. He buys an abandoned farm and aims to support his family by growing sunflowers. Meanwhile there is an obvious coolness between his wife Denise (Penelope Ann Miller) and his daughter Jess (Kristen Stewart). Rounding out the household is mute toddler Ben (played by Evan and Theodore Turner). The audience knows in advance that something horrific happened in that house from the pre-credits scene, showing a family getting killed by an unseen force. So the audience know to look out for the tell-tale signs such as scratch marks on the floor, stains on the walls and a child’s toy tractor at the back of a cupboard. At first it is just Ben who senses the presence of others in the house. But when he and Jess are left alone in the house (following an attack upon their father by a flock of crows) she too witnesses a supernatural force throwing the furniture around. Dead grey arms almost succeed at pulling her into the cellar. Thereafter the supernatural occurences become more and more threatening, with the dead Rollins family looming out of the dark and the crows gathering in number above the farm. 

I’m quite surprised that I had never heard of this film before. It has a ‘name’ cast, including Penelope Anne Miller (Carlito’s Way, The Relic, The Artist), John Corbett (Sex and the City, My Big Fat Greek Wedding) and Dylan McDermott (who played Jackson in Steel Magnolias). Sci-fi nerds can also get their ya-yas from a cameo appearance from William B. Davis (AKA The X-Files’ Cigarette Smoking Man). Plaudits must go to the younger cast members however. I had seen Kristen Stewart with a small part in Into the Wild, but other than that only knew her as the annoying one from Twilight (which I haven’t – yet – seen). I was impressed with her performance. She really does carry the movie as the ‘ordinary sullen teenager with issues’ who is plunged into something horrific. However, and bearing in mind how much I usually hate child actors, I have to reserve my strongest praise for for the Turner boys who played Ben. Considering that they had dialogue-free roles (at least, until the end) I thought they were brilliant as the mute toddler following the action with his eyes and with his ever-pointing finger. 

 

Team Edward decided to teach K-Stew a lesson



Looking on the internet I see that The Messengers has not got very good reviews. Yes, I admit that it is somewhat derivative. And yes the scares come from sudden great chonking chords on the soundtrack. But it does well at creating an air of suspense and creeping terror. This is more than any other horror movie I have watched this year has managed to achieve and so I must report back favourably on The Messengers if only for that reason. It is well worth a viewing for an evening’s spine-tingler. 

What have I learnt about North Dakota?

It is very different to Chicago. I imagine the big cities must lure people away from the state. Roy obviously moved from N.D. to Chicago at some point in his past. Bobby (Dustin Milligan) says that there isn’t much for young people to do in their unspecified small town. Being bad at basketball and picking up on local gossip seem to be the biggest hobbies. Tne local feed store still has newspaper clippings on the noticeboard of people who left town five years ago. 

The terrain is suited for agriculture, and the growing of sunflowers for their seeds is one such agricultural pursuit.  Such an existence seems quite a marginal pursuit however. Everything depends upon the harvest. Bad harvests can bankrupt a farm. The local grain and seed supply stores must know this, so they take a risk letting even new farmers pay for only half their seed up front and giving them credit until the harvest. Essentially, farmers have to economise throughout the year and then pay out all their bills once the harvest comes in. 

Can we go there?

Nowhere in the film does it specify whereabouts in North Dakota the Solomon’s farm is located. It has been commented on the internet that the hills that can occasionally be seen must position it in the western part of the state as the east is exceptionally flat. 

Actually, The Messengers was filmed north of North Dakota’s western border. It was filmed in Saskatchewan, Canada. Interiors were filmed at the Canada Saskatchewan Production Studios in Regina. One hour east of Regina the farm was constructed from scratch in a suitably rural area. The actual location was a valley south of Abernethy and east of Katepwa. 

Overall Rating: 4/5

Leprechaun (1993)

Dir. Mark Jones

Starring: Warwick Davis, Jennifer Aniston, Ken Olandt, Mark Holton 

I thought everybody loved the Irish? Maybe this will change after watching Leprechaun, where the monster is Life’s Too Short’s Warwick Davis spouting paradiddles and jigging about in green top hat, buckled shoes and green jacket. You see, he’s after his crock of gold. “Try as they will, and try as they might, who steals me gold won’t live through the night…” 
 

This particular leprechaun finds himself in America after ‘Oirish’ rogue Daniel O’Grady (Shay Duffin) catches him back in the Old Country and forces him to give up the location of his gold. When O’Grady takes the gold back to his farm in North Dakota the vengeful imp is on his tail. With the help of a four-leafed clover Dan prevails and imprisons the leprechaun in a crate in his cellar. 
 

Ten years later and J.D. (John Sanderford) has bought the old O’Grady farm, bringing his spoiled L.A. Valley girl daughter Tory (Jennifer Aniston) out with him. After the leprechaun is accidentally released and her father hospitalised it is up to Tory and the three local decorators - Mark Holton’s simple Ozzie, Robert Gorman’s Macauley Culkin-alike Alex and Ken Olandt’s Nathan (chanelling Kevin Bacon in a sleeveless shirt) – to live through the night and defeat the monstrous pixie. Meanwhile he terrorises the vicinity on a string of wheeled contraptions – toddler trikes, pogo sticks, skateboards, wheelchairs and roller skates. He cares only about finding his gold... and shining their shoes. Quirky!

 

The Irish Paralympians were determined to get gold

 

Tory is played by Jennifer Aniston, in her first film role. Yes, it’s a film starring Jennifer Aniston. For those of you who might have entertained even the slightest hope that Leprechaun was going to be a good movie I'm sure knowing this pretty much dispels your illusions right there. With the honourable exception of Office Space (in which she does not have a large role) Aniston has an incredible knack of appearing in absolutely atrocious movies. I must admit, I have not seen many of them, but The Object of My Affections and The Bounty Hunter must be two of the worst films I have ever watched. Others – like Along Came Polly, Marley & Me and The Switch - sound even worse from the reviews I have read. There must be someone out there who thinks there is a massive Jennifer Aniston fan club willing to see whatever dreck she is cast in. Or maybe they just know that they will get good publicity as the rumours that she is dating her co-star inevitably circulate. That being said, I must put my hands up and state for the record that she is probably the best thing about this film. Tory Redding is, essentially, Rachel Green in terrible patchwork denim shorts. Her spoilt princess is still kinda likeable and she does have good comic timing. Without Aniston Leprechaun would have had far less entertainment value.

Leprechaun is not a scary movie. It is not even particularly gory. It sort of goes for ‘comedy-horror’, but without the wit of, say, Gremlins or even Tremors. It knows it is silly and plays that up. The over-all tone is camp and kitschy. It is a schlock-horror. Unlike The Mist it does not presume to take itself seriously. I suppose its reception depends on how amusing you find Warwick Davis’s fiddle-dee-dee ‘Oirish-isms’. The character of Alex is annoying, and that of Ozzie borderline insulting. The music is straight off the Horror Soundtracks vol. III album. Worst of all, the ending sets up the resultant string of sequels. 

The final word on this pretty poor movie has to go to Daniel O’Grady himself: “Burn in hell ye little green bastard!” 

What have I learnt about North Dakota?

I have no idea why the film was set in North Dakota. It could quite easily have been set in Ireland (though I suppose people there might have been more willing to heed warnings about a murderous leprechaun). The setting only needs to be suitably isolated (though within a drive of a hospital emergency room, a convalescent home and a helpful antique dealer store). It also needs to be somewhere a Valley Girl would not appreciate spending her summer holidays (the diners don’t even serve watercress salad and Evian). The one insight we can really glean is that life is simpler here than back in L.A. and an apology will work better than offering to pay for damages. Oh, and there are opossums and bears in the backcountry. 

Can we go there?

Other than an introductory statement specifying that they were in North Dakota (and not New Mexico) there are no insights given as to where about in the state the action is supposed to occur. At first I thought that there was a clue when Tory and Nathan are seen in a diner called the Saugus Café. But this is just a clue to where the film was actually shot – Saugus just north of Los Angeles. 

Overall Rating: 2/5

Dakota (1945)

Dir. Joseph Kane

Starring: John Wayne, Vera Hruba Ralston, Walter Brennan, Ward Bond 

 

1870. John Wayne is muscular scoundrel John Devlin. The film opens with him eloping with his new wife Sandra (Vera Hruba Ralston), daughter of railroad mogul Marco Poli (Hugo Haas). Devlin’s plan is to head to California and start a new life there. Sandy has other ideas. She has sold her father’s “Gainsboro” for $20,000 and plans to double their money by taking them first to Fargo in the Dakota territory. Her plan is that they can buy land locally, then sell it back at a profit when the railroad is extended from St. Paul. Unfortunately she is not the first person to have such an idea. Local big man Jim Bender (Ward Bond – Bert the cop from It’s a Wonderful Life) is in the process of consolidating his grip over the farmers of Fargo. The large estate owners are burned off their land. The immigrant small homesteaders are conned into agreeing a contract with Bender that will see them forfeit their land to him if the harvest fails. With fire-spreading heavies like Bigtree Collins (Mike Mazurka) at his call, Bender aims to ensure that the harvest will, indeed, fail. The bantering Devlins are a variable that he doesn’t much like having around. 

It’s an odd movie. With its bickering central couple it seems to foreshadow later action-oriented romantic comedies like Romancing the Stone. In that respect is seems quite forward-looking for 1945. It’s a shame that the same cannot be said for its treatment of cultural issues. The homesteaders are all happy-go-lucky thick-accented immigrants with colourful clothing (well, we are told it is colourful: it’s hard to tell in black and white). And the least said about Nicodemus (Nicodemus Stewart), the lazy, feckless black bosun on board The River Bird the better! The comedy is quite forced. An example of Wayne’s ‘witty’ banter comes when he meets a showgirl called Jersey (Ola Munson): “I thought Jersey was a state.” “Sometimes I am.” It doesn’t help that a lot of the accents are all but incomprehensible. Vera Hruba Ralston has a Czech accent that stilts her conversational skills (she, like Sonja Heine of Sun Valley Serenade) was also a pre-war figure skater. The only differences are that Ralston never placed better than seventh, she doesn’t get a chance to show off her skills in the movie, and that Heine was never nominated for ‘Worst Actress Ever’ Golden Turkey Award. Still, she is more comprehensible from what I guess is meant to be the film’s comedy star turn, Walter Brennan’s Captain Bounce. He gabbles away madly at his decrepit steam paddlewheeler. He is terrible. And, by the time Dakota was made, he was also a three-time Oscar winner, having won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1936, 1938 and 1940 (and having been nominated a fourth time in 1941). For a ‘comedy’ I’m not sure there is a single laugh in it.

It is better where it sticks to the action. Within the first ten minutes we have a carriage race through the wooded roads of ‘Chicago’ and a pretty good punch-up on a train with bodies flying over the other passengers. After that point plot starts to get in the way of fisticuffs however. The final melee is a confused maelstrom of gunfire, horses racing by and stage coaches toppling over. It’s hard to tell who is fighting who in the dark. Thankfully director Joseph Kane brings the focus back to Devlin, Bender and Collins before the audience gives up in bafflement. 

There are some good ideas lurking in the background of Dakota. Not surprising when the original screenplay was penned by Carl ‘On the Waterfront’ Forman. For a ‘classic’ Western it makes no bones that the powerful in these frontier provinces got and stayed that way because they were unscrupulous. Even in 1870 the kind of corporate chicanery that seems all too common today was still in operation. Bender has insider information and he intends to profit from it. So too, for that matter, do the Devlins. Unfortnately the film does not know what to do with that premise. It cannot decide whether it wants to be an action movie or a romantic comedy. My gut feeling is that they should have left the comedy behind in Chicago and had John Wayne shoot first and make wise cracks later. 

 

Ryanair's attempt to levy a 'Cowboy Hat Charge'
was the final straw...

 

What have I learnt about North Dakota?

Dakota features North Dakota before it was a state, when it was just part of the Dakota Territory.This was new land, fertile and cultivatable, and new immigrants to the U.S. came here to grow wheat. These ‘bonanza farmers’ are depicted as having thick accents and colourful native customes intact. Of course, not having much money or English, they were ripe for exploitation by the predatory. The native Sioux could be conveniently blamed for any mishap. 

The rail road was eventually to link the Dakotas to the rest of the nation. Until then those wishing to travel to the new towns on the very edge of the territory like Fargo or Grand Forks would have to take the train to St. Paul, the stagecoach across to Fort Abercrombie, and then head up the Red River by boat. 

Can we go there?

The places featured still exist. Fort Abercrombie has been reconstructed as a historic site. Some 35 miles north up the Red River valley is Fargo. The railroad now does indeed pass through the city, with Amtrak's Empire Builder stopping off between Chicago and Seattle or Portland. One place to visit to evoke those bygone days would be Bonanzaville. Sadly the Pioneer Days event commemorating the crossing of the Red River was last weekend. 

Of course, Dakota was not actually filmed in the Dakotas. It was a cheapy Western churned out to meet demand. The film was shot, unsurprisingly, pretty much entirely on set in Hollywood. One of the few occasions when the action spills off the sound stage is when Vasquez Rocks (just north of Los Angeles) can be seen as the stage coach sweeps into Fort Abercrombie. 

Overall Rating: 2/5

Week 35: North Dakota

"I ain't the kind believes in ghosts
 But some nights I get pretty close
 When the North Dakota winter moans..."
 - 'North Dakota',
 Chris Knight

 

From North Carolina we head on to North Dakota. It's a fair old way further north, and just as far farther west. From the muggy Atlantic coast we are in to the very centre of the North American landmass, up on the Canadian border.

 

Boxed in by Canada, Montana, Minnesota and South Dakota I feel a bit sorry for North Dakota. It's neighbours all seem so much more charismatic. Montana is the 'Big Sky Country'. South Dakota has the Black Hills, Badlands National Park and Mount Rushmore. Minnesota has the Twin Cities on the Mississippi and hundreds of lakes. Apparently North Dakota is the US's least visited state. What does it have to lure the tourists in? Missile silos, wheatfields and a state capital named after a 19th Century German Chancellor. (Bismarck - all part of a plan to attract German investment in railroads and German immigration. It seems to have been successful; 2.5% of the population speak German apparently).

 

We have just about visited North Dakota previously however. Its largest city is Fargo. In fact the Coen Brothers' Fargo made it on to my original list for North Dakota before someone pointed out that all but two scenes were actually set in Minnesota. So I have had to find alternative movies for this week. And it wasn't easy. I've ended up with two films that I'd never heard of beforehand, and one that is famously terrible. So it could be an interesting week...

The three films are:

• Dakota (1945)
• Leprechaun (1993)
• The Messengers (2007)