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Supposedly God-fearing locals in a small Louisiana , USA town called Haven are in near-hysteria over what appears to be the biblical plagues descending on them. People are sprouting boils and being infested with lice while frogs rain upon the town. To investigate the phenomena, schoolteacher Doug Blackwell ( David Morissey ) enlists the help of a university professor, Katharine Winter ( Hilary Swank ), who is as cold as her name suggests and whose mission is to debunk so-called miracles with scientific explanations. Winter and her assistant Ben (Idris Elba) arrive in Haven to find the river has turned red--blood, according to the locals who blame a bunch of devil-worshippers living secluded in the swampy woods nearby, and who pinpoint Loren ( Anna Sophia Robb ), a 12-year-old girl from their evil ilk as the root cause of the plagues. But Winter remains cold and dead set on proving the red liquid is not blood, and begins speculating about pH imbalances and toxins in the water. Meanwhile, the boils get mean and murderous, the lice greedier, and more dead frogs by the thousands turn up on the bloody river. Then come the locusts blanketing the landscape and wrapping everything and everyone in sight--except Loren whom they strangely seem to respect. Meanwhile, Winter--who served as a missionary in the Sudan but lost her faith in God when her husband and her daughter were murdered--is perplexed when the tests on the river water samples proved the liquid is indeed human blood. What now?
The script is crucial if a horror movie like The Reaping must prove itself a standout in its genre, and it’s good here. Actor Swank who’s a natural for hard-boiled and undaunted heroine roles, delivers her lines with unflinching confidence. (If you get a DVD of this, replay to your ear’s content her fierce and rational explanation for the Egyptian plagues, and then wonder how much research script writing brothers Chad and Carey Hayes have actually done to arrive at this.) The Reaping does not rely on the usual spine-chillers alone to scare; rather it also creates an atmosphere of tension through the use of handheld camerawork, eerie locales, and wind chimes, for example. And, of course, CGI takes much of the credit for making the computerized plagues seem true-to-life--if you’ll but forgive the larger-than-life-size lice and locusts.
The Reaping presents a timely point for Lenten reflection, not only on account of its biblical theme, but also--and more so--for its very existence. The Omen, Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and a host of other horror films with 666, Satan, and other religion-rooted elements in them seem to prove that Hollywood desperately wants to address matters of faith , and that their chief vehicle is the horror film. Now, the other questions to ask are: Is Hollywood engaging in some kind of “Biblesploitation” by creating entertainment out of religion? It has come a long way from the day Cecil B. de Mille parted the Red Sea, and although we are willing to believe that the camera tricks in his The Ten Commandments then edified the faithful, we now suspect that the current Bible-inspired horror movies that Charlton Heston’s great grandchildren may be watching now--with scripts indebted to Scriptures--are only there to wring gold out of God. For clearly, the box-office success of these movies shows that there is an audience for this faith-based sensationalism. However, while CINEMA would advise you against learning Theology in the theaters, we also concede to the truth that we can never rule out the ways of the Holy Spirit who moves not only upon the waters but also within the celluloid reels. In that case, caveat emptor.
(Date Reviewed: 06 April 2007)
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