Hollywood Avoids North Dakota Again
A helpful reader emailed to point out that a new horror movie coming out this weekend is set on a small farm somewhere in rural North Dakota. According to The Messenger’s production notes:
In THE MESSENGERS, a thriller starring KRISTEN STEWART as Jess, DYLAN McDERMOTT and PENELOPE ANN MILLER as Jess’ parents Roy and Denise Solomon and JOHN CORBETT as field hand John Burwell, the Solomon family has left the fast paced life of Chicago for the secluded world of a North Dakota farm. Amidst the tranquil sway of the farm’s field of sunflowers, Jess, 16, soon realizes how terrifying seclusion can be when she and her brother Ben, 3, begin seeing ominous apparitions invisible to everyone else. When those specters become violent, Jess’ sanity is questioned – a double jeopardy for the tormented teen. Her troublesome past comes face to face with the past of those who once lived in the house, a perilous confrontation that leaves her believability in question with those she desperately tries to warn before it is too late.
Cool, I guess, except that the movie itself (like Fargo before it, which was actually in Minnesota) shuns North Dakota. This time in favor of Regina, Saskatchewan. About 100 miles north of the North Dakota/Canadian border. Which kind of stinks as it would have been nice to have my home state actually featured, not just referred to, in a movie.
But whatever. I guess the lure of the cheap Canadian dollar, as well as Canadian subsidies for movies and better relationships with labor unions north of the border, is just too much for those Hollywood producers to resist.
