Grade: C | There were high and low expectations for “The Messengers.”

Being the first American film directed by the talented Pang brothers, identical twins from Hong Kong, “The Messengers” could have breathed new life into the Hollywood horror scene. It also could have fallen into the riskless pitfalls of big budgets and teenage-oriented marketing.

Disappointingly, it fell somewhere in between.

Much like “The Ring” or “The Grudge,” “The Messengers” rides the financially successful wave of Asian filmmakers coming to America with their own disturbing style. The bloodless trademark style features eerie and new camera work, claustrophobia-inducing locations and strange-moving, computer-animated creatures.

However, while “The Ring” and “The Grudge” created these conventions, “The Messengers” just rides the wave.

“The Messengers” may not be very original – a cast of mildly notable actors playing a struggling family head for the hills of North Dakota, trying to begin again, only to find that the house has a history and their dream may become a nightmare.

But, the film borrows from good sources, making blatant references to powerful horror films such as “The Shining,” “The Birds” and “The Sixth Sense.”

“The Messengers” takes the Pang brothers into the American Midwest, away from Hong Kong, which served as a very comfortable backdrop for their most acclaimed film, “The Eye.” The transition from Hong Kong to big-budget America did make for a more widely accepted film, but the directors have been placed into awkward territory.

The film doubles as both a horror movie and family drama, but the characters are so vague and their issues so small, compared to the supernatural horror around them, that the heated arguments feel awkward.

Regardless, the PG-13 rating and misunderstood teenage character Jess must have connected well with the young people in the country, since “The Messengers” was the No. 1 grossing movie since its opening.

With the commercial success of “The Messengers,” the Pang brothers are set in Hollywood, with film-industry credand a hit film, and they’re already in production for a sequel of “The Eye” with super-celebrity Tom Cruise.

Whether the film was as new and inventive as it could have been from directors with a fresh slate and a new angle, it is certainly a horror movie with more on its agenda than most.