Although it is a bit predictable from start to finish, The Reaping is still an enjoyable movie thanks to good performances from its cast, an interesting story, and plenty of old fashion scares. The movie is filled with spooky camera angles, classic horror “jumps,” and moody music.
Directed by Stephen Hopkins (The Ghost and the Darkness), The Reaping stars Hilary Swank, David Morrissey, Idris Elba, AnnaSophia Robb, and Stephen Rea.
The film follows investigative scholar Katherine Winter (Swank) – who spends most of her free academic time debunking modern "miracles," and bringing them to a scientific explanation. It starts off with Winter and her partner Ben (Elba) discovering the cause of a dead priest’s healing ability.
Following her return, Winter (who used to be a missionary) is asked to investigate the town of Haven, Louisiana – which appears to be suffering from the 10 Biblical Plagues.
As the plagues continue, Winter starts to unravel a darker mystery with the town and the girl. She is also forced to deal with an incident from her past that caused her to stop being a missionary. The movie reaches a boiling point toward the ending where Winter discovers the truth right as the final plague (death to the first born) starts to unleash itself on the small town. Since I don’t want to give away any of the movie’s twist and turns, I will stop with the plot description.
The Reaping was somewhat predictable (especially toward the end), but held my attention and even gave me a few scares along the way. The film features a good performance from Swank (even if she won’t be getting an Academy nod for this film), and a spooky little performance from Robb (who moves out of the kid movies like Bridge to Terabithia to give Dakota Fanning a run for her money).
Robb and Swank work well together, and seem to add a decent level of tension and suspense to what is happening on the screen. It isn’t Swank’s best work, but it is a step above her performance in 2003’s The Core. She is able to sell the part of her being the doubting scientist and comes off as a nice contrast of Elba’s Ben (who is a diehard believer in all the miracles he debunks).
Hopkins manages to keep the film moving at a rather rapid pace so you never have a chance to really think about how silly the plot is or how cliché some of the characters are (particularly Stephen Rea’s Father Costigan who seems to have walked straight off The Exorcist set).
Peter Levy (the director of photography) helps make the film scary with nice camera angles - such as Swank climbing into a dark room where you know something bad is going to happen or walking up a dark spiral staircase. He also uses tight shots of the actors to give the film a claustrophobic feel at just the right times. These angles often pay off with something hitting the camera at a rapid pace to make the popcorn go flying from the viewer’s lap. Maybe I am just getting old, but I jumped several times in this film – which is what a good horror film should make you do.
Sadly, the film loses much of its appeal towards the end when it spirals down into cliché and predictability. Throughout the movie, I was waiting for the plot twist that I knew would ruin the movie, and sure enough it does. Yes, it still stays creepy as the movie comes to its conclusion, but it also gets a bit too over the top to maintain some of the scares it had been building. This wasn’t enough to ruin the movie for me, but it lessen some of my enjoyment.
The DVD comes with some decent special features including:
The Science of the 10 Plagues: The Search for Scientific Explanation – which features scientist and Biblical scholars explaining what could have caused the plagues scientifically rather than just accepting the supernatural reasons found in the Bible.
The Characters – which features the actors discussing their various roles in the film
A Place Called Haven – takes you on a tour of the locations and landscape of the film. They also look at the aftermath of Katrina
The Reaping: The Seventh Plague – a look at the bugs and insects of the film
The Reaping is an enjoyable “popcorn” horror film that starts out creepy and stumbles into cliché (think Rosemary’s Baby meets The Exorcist with a bit of Children of the Corn thrown in for good measure). The film was enjoyable, but loses all scares towards the end. If you are looking for a light horror film or a few scares this Halloween season, I would still recommend it. It has a few jumps, and will hold your interest.
The Reaping is now available at Amazon and AmazonUK . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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