Oh, those crazy Ghost House guys. Just when we thought they'd never produce a good movie, they went the "big boy" route and delivered the icily fantastic 30 Days of Night. It was so damn good, it almost made us forget about previous DH offerings like Boogeyman, The Grudge 2, Rise: Blood Hunter and The Messengers. (OK, so their first flick, The Grudge (remake), wasn't too rotten, but damn if I can remember anything about it.)

So what will the Ghost Housers be doing with some of that 30don money? Churning out a bunch more video sequels, of course! Fangoria brings us the word on a whole bunch of upcoming stuff...

Boogeyman 3 -- Yeah, Boogeyman 2 hits DVD early next year. This one's Part 3. Brian Sieve (Boogeyman 2) is writing the script.

The Grudge 3 -- Toby Wilkins (Kidney Thieves) directs and Brad Keene (The Gravedancers) writes this "culture reversal" sequel.

The Messengers 2 -- Screenwriter Todd Farmer returns for this prequel -- that couldn't possibly be much lamer than the first entry. So that's good news.

Rise 2 -- Gary Jones (Crocodile 2: Death Swamp) directs and Ben Ketai (30 Days of Night: Blood Trails) writes this Liu-less sequel to the witless Lucy Liu vamp flick.

So basically someone at Ghost House decided to make a sequel to EVERY ONE of their films, regardless of quality or actual demand for a sequel. (Check out the Fango report for all the good news.) Here's hoping that the inevitable 30 Days sequel is done with some class ... and a budget.

Happy Monday, all. Hope you enjoyed yesterday's fumble-rific Super Bowl; but weren't the commercials severely disappointing this year? My favorite: the Coca-Cola video game one, though I'm told that one wasn't new. And the one where the guys slap each other sort of made me laugh. Guess I'm a sucker for cheap thrills and violence.

Speaking of which ... The Messengers bagged (get it? messenger bag? sorry) the No. 1 spot on a relatively weak moviegoing weekend. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's what I predicted on Friday:

1. Because I Said So
2. The Messengers
3. Epic Movie
4. Smokin' Aces
5. Night at the Museum

And here's the actual weekend top five:

1. The Messengers - $14.5 million
2. Because I Said So - $13 million
3. Epic Movie - $8.2 million
4. Night at the Museum - $6.75 million
5. Smokin' Aces - $6.3 million

Get the full box-office report here.

So close, but no cigar. Diane Keaton and Mandy Moore were no match for a spooky house, a teen (Kristen Stewart), her little brother, and countless almost-dead entities. Looks like the Pang brothers knew what they were doing when they signed on to direct their first English-language film. And their Hong Kong hit The Eye is being remade for American audiences, with Jessica Alba cast as the lead (though it's not slated for release until 2010), so it looks like the Pangs are becoming a name -- err, names -- to recognize in the field of horror movie directors.

Today we read from the Horror Movie Bible, chapter 13, verse 666: "When there are no Asian horror movies left to remake, Asian filmmakers will alight to Hollywood and create Americanized versions of The Ring, The Grudge and Dark Water and lo the PG-13 rating will be applied -- and it will be not good." But since The Messengers was written by a really cool horror geek named Mark Wheaton, I walked into an opening day matinee screening of the flick with some high hopes. Despite everything the TV spots, the trailers and the pre-release buzz had been telling me, I was actively intent on trying to enjoy The Messengers. Sorry to say that my pilot light of enthusiasm was snuffed out after less than twelve minutes of on-screen activity. This is a stunningly inert, painfully derivative, shamelessly cheap and aggressively dull ghost story that delivers nothing you haven't seen before. About 43 times.

Clocking in at a scant 84 minutes (and that's including a tiresome prologue and a lengthy opening credits sequence), The Messengers is The Grudge on a farm (The Grarm!) -- and it's about as thrilling as that description implies. It's about a family of four (Mom, Dad, Teenage Daughter, Mute Boy Toddler) who bail on Chicago in favor of Nowheresville, North Dakota. (Dad's got a bee in his bonnet about becoming a sunflower farmer, darnit, and nothing's gonna get in the way of that dream!) While Mom, Dad and Mute Toddler go about settling into their new home, teenage daughter has a problem; basically, she sees shadows, visions, apparitions, etc. -- and of course nobody believes her. (There's a ridiculously prolonged backstory about why Mom and Dad don't completely trust Teenage Daughter, but it's much too silly to get into at this point.)

Happy February, movie fans. As the days get longer, the movies are supposed to get better ... or that's the theory, anyway. Of course, it's still early February -- and a Super Bowl weekend, at that -- so I wouldn't put too much faith in that maxim. On the other hand, after Epic Movie, there's pretty much nowhere to go but up, right?

Because I Said So: Why should you go see this movie? Because Universal said so, that's why. Oh, I'm kidding. You should -- or rather, many of you will -- see this movie because it's a romantic comedy, stars Diane Keaton and Mandy Moore as mother and daughter, and has the added bonus of co-starring Lauren Graham (who really needs to win an Emmy one of these days for her work on Gilmore Girls) and Piper Perabo wearing very little clothing. It's also getting a big marketing push from the studio, so with all the able-bodied men holed up in their Super Bowl bunkers this weekend, lots of the womenfolk are gonna leave them there to go revel in the chick flick. (Note: Yes, I know many women love football. I happen to be one of them. Just trying to think like a studio, is all.)
Watch trailer and a clip | Get showtimes & tix | Read reviews

The Messengers: Kristen Stewart stars in the American feature film debut by the Pang brothers, the Hong Kong directing duo (they're twins) best known for their frightfest The Eye. And Stewart, if you don't recognize the name, appeared in Panic Room as Jodie Foster's daughter. She's all grown up now (well, 16) and headlining a horror flick about a girl who discovers that both she and her 3-year-old brother can see things -- dead things, presumably -- that her parents can't. How will it do? The Hitcher opened to disappointing returns a couple weekends ago, and Stewart's not a big star; also, the Pang brothers aren't known by name here in the U.S. But with Night at the Museum and Stomp the Yard finally losing steam and Epic Movie getting horrendous word of mouth, it's a weak competitive field ... and people do like a good scare.
Watch exclusive clip | Get showtimes & tix | Read Kristen's AIM interview

Also of Note: Pan's Labyrinth expands to over 1,000 screens this weekend. Please go see it. Because ... well, because I said so, OK? And also because it's awesome.

I'm even less certain about the box office top five this week than I was last week, so I'm looking forward to everyone showing me up. Let's make the deadline Saturday at 3 p.m. Eastern, which means you have 24 hours. Hit it.

1. Because I Said So
2. The Messengers
3. Epic Movie
4. Smokin' Aces
5. Night at the Museum

POST: What's your weekend top five prediction?

POST: What do you think of these movies?

There have been plenty of wacky ideas over the years on how to promote a movie. Going way back to David O Selznick's search for Scarlett O'Hara to Kevin Smith offering title credits for fans on his MySpace page; movie makers will try anything to drum up a little excitement for a new release.

The Hollywood Reporter announced that Sony is offering Ultra Sonic ring tones in connection with the release of The Messengers. So what's an ultrasonic ring tone? It is a ring tone that is only audible to people under the age of 25. The theory being that as you age your hearing deteriorates, so certain frequencies go undetected, so if you only use those frequencies only teens can usually hear it. The ring tone is available on the official site but you are going to have to cough up $2.49. The ring tone works as a tie-in with the plot of the film, that focuses on a teen girl experiencing supernatural phenomena that no one else can see or hear.

This isn't the only idea that the marketing department came up with for the film. Some of Sony's upcoming campaigns include a 1-800 number, a blog, instant messaging, and a profile of the lead character on social networking sites. So what does all this marketing mean for the movie? Either Sony is just trying to support a new release, or they are starting to get a little desperate for attention.

The last time we had some news about The Messengers, Scott Weinberg let us in on word of delays and re-shoots, neither of which seemed to bode well for the US debut of the Pang Brothers. Well, it looks like Sony is ready to go ahead with the horror-thriller and released the usual trinity of movie marketing, a web site, a trailer, and now the poster.

JoBlo.com has a first look at the one-sheet for the film starring Dylan McDermott, Penelope Ann Miller, and Kristen Stewart. The story takes place on a sunflower farm, (sunflower farm? Um, ok...) where a family turns on one another as the result of some "supernatural" influences. Thai directors Danny and Oxide Pang (The Eye) are helming the script for the horror written by Mark Wheaton and Todd Farmer. Wheaton, who you might know as Smilin' Jack Ruby from CHUD and Ain't It Cool News, has made the leap from writing about the movies to getting a feature film with a major studio. The bad news though, is that both the trailer and the poster only look so-so. Plus, I think they should have really thought twice about that tagline.

If all of that hasn't managed to cool your jets then you won't be waiting long, The Messengers hits theaters February, 2007.

Not a whole lot of juicy new happenings have fallen out of the horror machine recently, so (since I'm bored and they pay me to blog) I thought I'd just share a couple of small-sized exclusives from the Bloody-Disgusting boys.

1. Brace yourselves: Sony's slapping together another direct-to-video semi-sequel. This time it's The Craft that gets the unwanted little sister. Yep, that flick about teenage witches who do very little with their evil powers besides torture boys, color their hair and fight with one another. No word yet on whether Fairuza Balk will be returning to play "that creepy witch girl who lives down the street," but I'm guessing she might.

2. More word from Sonyville's Horror Department: Apparently there's all sorts of problems with the mildly-anticipated The Grudge 2, and also big buckets of reshoots being done on The Pang Brothers' The Messengers as well. (Y'know, between Ghost House (The Grudge, Boogeyman) and Dark Castle (Gothika, House of Wax) I don't think they've put together one completely solid horror movie yet. What gives?)

3. Speaking of Dark Castle movies that probably aren't any good, WB rescheduled The Reaping's release for next March. Oh, and (as mentioned earlier) both Lucky McKee's The Woods and John Gulager's Feast have earned DVD dates, cover art and copious supplemental doo-hickeys.

Thanks to BD.com and Dread Central for the terrifiying tidbits.