film | Holy crap

The poster for the occult mystery THE REAPING sports the tagline What hath God wrought?, but the question first and foremost on my mind while navigating its convoluted tale of biblical nuttiness was Did Hilary Swank owe somebody a favor? Because, um, hello, she's young-ish, she has two Oscars, she's got clout and prestige and whatnot. I know people complain about how few quality roles there are for women in Hollywood, but is the situation so dire that Swank voluntarily signed up for the cringe-worthiest career about-face since Halle Berry won the Academy Award for Monster's Ball, then opted to star in the immensely idiotic shocker Gothika, which, by the way, is from the same production studio as The Reaping? Uh-oh. Let us now pray for Reese Witherspoon, 2006's Best Actress, who, if the trend holds and the timing is right, should be starring in some abysmal horror flick sometime this autumn.

Swank plays a former pastor who — say it with me — lost her faith when her husband and child were killed on a missionary trip to Africa. What's a devoutly religious gal who's royally ticked off at God to do? Why, become an atheist professor of miracle-debunkery at Louisiana State University, of course, which makes her the go-to authority when a nearby backwoods community claims that the water in their creeks has ominously turned to blood overnight. the Bible-beatin' locals fear this is the first in a revisited series of the 10 plagues of Egypt from the book of Exodus, so Swank sets out to explain it all with science — only she can't, natch, cuz The Reaping is a supernatural thriller with at least nine more special-effects sequences to realize. It gives very little away to note that Swank's made a re-believer upon being assailed by a swarm of locusts, but that's plague no. 8, and it follows the boils, the lice and the death of the livestock. Me, I'd probably get a mean case of the wiggins when hundreds of flies — and that's no. 3, one of the early plagues — instantaneously envelope the grilled fish I was gonna eat for dinner, which is a roundabout suggestion that Swank takes too long to grasp that she's in way over her skeptical head.

Yawn, here's a twist: This freaky business is connected to a barefoot devil child (Bridge to Terabithia's Annasophia Robb) who doesn't do much but habitually dart in front of the camera whenever director Stephen Hopkins (Lost in Space) needs to trick viewers into thinking The Reaping is actually scary. Nope, just loud, obnoxious and redundant with the requisite, dumb faux-jolts — phew, it was only a bird! or a tea kettle! or a dream ... within a dream! — that typically come two or three in a row. As for the story, it's the stuff of a lame X-Files two-parter: satanic cults, secret villains, sacred daggers, southern discomfort, and climactic plot revelations involving a character who could resolve everything with an expository line or two if he or she didn't opt to inexplicably remain silent throughout most of the film. Swank invokes scientific techno-jargon like "phenophaline" with a brisk confidence, but she's trapped in a third-rate riff on The Omen — and since a mere nine months ago saw a second-rate remake of The Omen, The Reaping feels like a really burnt offering to the movie gods. D+