The Reaping


Title: The Reaping
Rating: 1/5
Genre: Horror
Starring: Hilary Swank, David Morrissey
Director: Stephen Hopkins

Religious horror always interested, and will always do, so I decided to try out this one, intrigued by the story line. "Katherine Winter" (Swank) a lecturer at a university that has lost her faith , who also investigates religious phenomena and debunks them, is invited into the small town in her state of Louisiana to investigate a river turning red, which brings homage to the "10 Plagues". The concept had potential. I heard the film failed miserably, yet I decided to check it out and judge for myself. I wasn't deluded. The is basically the summation of the whole "Satanic-cult" clichés, combined with many plot holes in the silly script, and crowned with over the top melodramatic acting.

I like "Swank", enjoyed her a lot in "Boys Don't Cry" and "Million Dollar Baby", but her she was utterly pointless. I know the weak script weakened the character, a professor playing "Mythbusters: Religions, here we come!" is the best situation to be in, but in many scenes she just seemed like a whining brat. The scene where she explained the ancient "10 Plagues", the scene that was meant to be a great dramatic piece, ended up making me laugh. It appeared she was about to pull a nerve from performing the serious scientist with a grudge. The whole film was a flop from the acting part, from the overly-suspicious and religious town's people who hide something secret.

I have to admit, I did enjoy most of "Hopkins" visuals. He tried his best to create this atmospheric feeling of damnation, he gives us a few good jumps, but he just couldn't help trying to create something in an attempt to match classics such as "Rosemary's Baby" or "The Omen". He didn't even let the film flow well. There are always questions and problems left bothering us. Even the effects that were used weren't that impressive. While some films manage to grab our attention from beginning to end, I was honestly struggling not to fall asleep. This is a "Satanic" horror film that succeeds in what many other satanic horror films succeed at, asides from the sleep struggle, I did have a couple of laughs at the ridiculous town's people preaching about the bible and how it's the end of the world, as if we didn't see enough of these. Oh, I forgot the kid that was running around in the wild most of the film, spooky stuff indeed.

Watching this film is lamentable. It had the ability to be something good, it really did, it was just bombarded with over extravagance and ludicrous plot "twists". Just because you have a good actress, a good budget, and a seemingly clever and "controversial" subject it doesn't means the film will work. This is something I saw out of curiosity alone, and why curiosity does work out well sometimes, it didn't this time. Sometimes, after we finish from watching a film like this one here, we ask ourselves this: "How on Earth where they pleased with such a result?!"

Trailer

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