This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 1st, 2007 at 12:01 pm and is filed under Horror, R, Thriller/Mystery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Director: Stephen Hopkins
Starring: Hilary Swank, David Morrissey, Idris Elba, AnnaSophia Robb, Stephen Rea, William Ragsdale
Director Stephen Hopkins, best known for The Ghost and The Darkness and several episodes of 24, uses a lot of shock tactics for thriller effects here, but doesn‘t manage to build and hold the tension as top thrillers do. The film is relentlessly dark and does build an effective mood, but the script, by twin brothers, Carey and Chad Hayes, is unveiled in a formula, by-the-numbers fashion and is interspersed with psychedelic flashbacks and visions.
A tiny, bible belt town gets spooked when their local river turns red and blames the plague-like occurrence on a strange twelve-year old girl. Professor Katherine Winter (Hilary Swank), a lapsed Minister and an expert in de-bunking divine occurrences is convinced to investigate by the local science teacher, Doug Blackwell (David Morrissey), whose role seems to chiefly consist of blandly dispensing back story and information. Soon, Doug, Katherine and her colleague, Ben (Idris Elba) are witnessing more mysterious events, and some pretty gross scenes as tensions grow.
The Reaping is a biblical-based thriller in the tradition of films like Stigmata and, to a lesser extent, The Omen and The Exorcist, but it lacks the punch of the latter films, and is a mediocre choice for all but die-hard horror suspense fans.
