The Messengers

When a family moves to a derelict farm in North Dakota, strange happenings plague the teenage daughter (Kristen Stewart), but her parents (Dylan McDermott, Penelope Ann Miller) think she’s just being spiteful to get attention. Written by Mark Wheaton and Todd Farmer and directed by brothers Danny and Oxide Pang, this movie exists in a universe where movies like this don’t exist—where people don’t have the sense not to buy a farm where the previous family mysteriously disappeared, where they insist on going down that dark hall or into that sinister basement, where parents don’t listen when their sensitive teenager sees ghosts. Stewart’s acting has improved noticeably since Panic Room and Catch That Kid, and she carries the cliches with aplomb. The “surprise” ending is predictable and anticlimactic.