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Katherine
believes that every "miracle" has a
scientific explanation and that god is something
that man just made up (much like I do). But when
a small town starts to experience the ten biblical
plagues, she starts questioning her faith. The
locals blame a young girl who lives by the swamp,
but could she really be the cause of all these
terrible occurrences?
Okay so the odds of me enjoying this flick weren't
very high. First of all, it's gotten horrible
reviews from just about every reviewer out there.
Second of all, the trailer looked terrible. Third
of all, the movie has been pushed forward for ages,
something which studios usually do to movies that
they don't have any faith in. And fourth of all,
I'm an atheist and perhaps that's why I generally
despise religion-oriented horror movies.
To my surprise, I found myself enjoying The Reaping
more than I thought that I would. Sure, it's a
cliché filled mix between The Omen, The Exorcist and
Stigmata more or less, but it's really not as bad
as one would expect it to be - nor as bad as some
of the critics have made it out to be. Hilary Swank
plays Katherine Winter, an atheist who gets sent
to investigate a river that has been turned into
blood. Now, this was probably why I managed to really
get into it because it's easier for me to relate to
someone who have the same believes as me - while
religious people are portrayed as uneducated hillbillies.
The plot is pretty predictable and the special
effects are quite laughable but it's entertaining
enough to keep you interested and the special
effects, no matter how poor, are nice to look at
and keep the movie at a good pace. However, the
ten plagues felt kind of rushed, they didn't
necessarily need to cover all of the plagues as
only three of them were even remotely interesting.
I mean, dead frogs falling down from trees? Not
that scary if you ask me.
And to agree with all you critics out there, the
movie does have its fair share of problems. As said
before, The Reaping is extremely generic, and the
surprise twist is pretty predictable (and poor).
Then we have a couple of plot holes (SPOILER: like
why does the little girl attack her mother?). Then
there's a bunch of other stuff as well but you can
read them in one of the hundreds of negative reviews
out there so I'm not going to bother.
Ultimately, I expected The Reaping to be, and I'll
be honest with you, absolute crap. What I got wasn't
good and it certainly wasn't wrought by god but it
was fairly entertaining. It's lucky to make it into
theatres, that's for sure as it's forgettable as
hell. It wants to be a new cult horror flick but
there are too many clichés and not enough originality
in it to become one. In the end, it doesn't deserve
all the bad reviews that it has gotten and it is
worth a rent, just don't go in with high expectations
just because Hilary Swank is in it.
Wasn't a whole lot of gore in here, a bunch of dead
bodies and some old skeletons.
Didn't do much for me, there wasn't a whole lot of
atmosphere to be found in here.
The Reaping is forgettable, generic, predictable and
has an extremely campy ending, but for the moment,
it is pretty entertaining - much more than I had
expected it to be. Perhaps that's why I left the
theatre surprisingly satisfied. Either way, it's
better than people make it out to be so make your
own mind up about this one.
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