CNS Movie Review: The Reaping

The Reaping

By Harry Forbes
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank probably needn't clear space on her mantle for another statuette, though her performance here is perfectly adequate.

In "The Reaping" (Warner Bros.), a film more silly than scary, she plays a former ordained minister named Katherine, who lost her faith several years earlier after her husband and young daughter were savagely killed during a missionary stint in Sudan.

Now an atheistic university professor, she travels the globe debunking paranormal events, as we see in the opening scenes where she blames chemical fumes and hallucinations for "miraculous" occurrences in a Chilean town.

Back on campus, a nice looking grammar-school teacher, Doug Blackwell (David Morrissey), from a Louisiana town called Haven, turns up and implores her to investigate some strange happenings in the Louisiana swamplands, where a river has turned to blood and a strange child, Loren McConnell (AnnaSophia Robb), is blamed for her brother's horrific death.

Though at first reluctant to take the assignment, memories of her own beloved child motivate her to go after she learns the superstitious townspeople want to kill the child. Katherine is oblivious to the hysterical phone warnings of Father Costigan (Stephen Rea), a former colleague from Sudan, who warns her that she's in danger, as her visage has been scarily obliterated on all his snapshots of her.

With Ben (Idris Elba), her former student and now colleague, in tow, she takes off for Haven, where indeed the river looks like tomato soup and dead frogs are dropping from above.

Ben is a staunch believer who perceives biblical parallels in the succession of flies, lice, boils and fire that the pair encounters in fairly quick succession. Katherine chalks it all up to science (though we, of course, know better), until she runs out of logical explanations.

Loren, a wild child to be sure, resists Katherine's maternal empathy. The appearance of Loren's own mother, a wild-eyed lady, prompts the film's most surprising exchange.

"Are you here to kill my daughter?" the mother asks.

"No," answers the mystified Katherine, assuring her she means no harm to Loren.

"Why not?" the mother retorts.

There's a first-rate locust attack and there are some creepy river sequences, but otherwise director Stephen Hopkins' horror fest is low on frights, with a disjointed script and choppy camerawork. "The Skeleton Key" from 2005, though hardly a classic, delivered more effective chills in the Southern Gothic mode.

The putative religious elements, including discussions about faith and the Father Costigan character, are mere window dressing to a conventional genre flick.

The film contains some intense horror effects, killings, blood, images of sick and dead people, a nongraphic sexual encounter, mild innuendo and facts-of-life discussion, a few rough and crude expletives and brief profanity, and many deceased cows and frogs. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III -- adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

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Forbes is director of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. More reviews are available online at www.usccb.org/movies.

END

Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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