The Messengers

I counted the reasons I'd probably like The Messengers:

1. It starred Dylan McDermott, known most recently from the TV show The Practice, and West Virginia's own John Corbett;

2. The paranormal theme suggests ghosts talking to children, which I dig. In fact, as a kid, I regularly wished that ghosts would visit with and talk to me.

3. I watched the DVD in a completely dark hotel room, after midnight, and on a laptop computer. All of that simply adds to the creepy factor.

40 minutes in I was fightin' sleep.

McDermott is the father of a urban family who moves to rural America to escape the problems that comes with the rat race. He wants to raise sunflowers as a crop, and buys an old farmhouse that has a violent history--which, conveniently, the family learns about way too late!

The plot has holes that are too obvious to ignore, and is incredibly boring. Even the technology used to portray the ghosts was passe. If the film had been made before The Ring, the ghost shots might have been frightening; used after The Ring, it's boring, and looks like a rip-off.

I should have just gone on to sleep anyway. I may have had a nightmare that was more interesting.