{"id":5710,"date":"2024-10-12T05:07:28","date_gmt":"2024-10-12T05:07:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=5710"},"modified":"2024-10-13T19:06:14","modified_gmt":"2024-10-13T23:06:14","slug":"the-reaping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/12\/the-reaping\/","title":{"rendered":"The Reaping"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Reaping<\/strong> (2007)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Horror-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 99 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, disturbing images, some sexuality, brief strong language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Stephen Hopkins\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Carey Hayes and Chad Hayes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Frizzell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Peter Levy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: April 5, 2007 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Hilary Swank, David Morrissey, Idris Elba, AnnaSophia Robb, Stephen Rea, William Ragsdale, John McConnell, David Jensen, Yvonne Landry, Samuel Garland, Myles Cleveland, Andrea Frankle, Mark Lynch, Stuart Greer, Lara Grice.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $25.1M (US)\/$62.7M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0God love the Biblical horror movie that manages to keep a straight face amidst much silliness. It\u2019s a miracle the actors in The Reaping<\/strong> never collapse into fits of laughter as its tale of a modern-day Ten Plagues unfolds. They had to know how ridiculous it all is, but somehow never let on. I\u2019d never be able to do that myself.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I watched The Reaping <\/strong>with a slight smile on my lips. It\u2019s goofy, no question about it, but it goes a little deeper than that for me. You\u2019ll have to excuse me for once again waxing nostalgic about the B-movies of my cinematically misspent youth, but I can easily see it bearing the New World Pictures logo if it came out in the 80s. Like most of their output, it\u2019s 100% pure junk, but entertaining in a way more serious-minded moviegoers will never understand. It\u2019s one of those movies you just have to settle in and let happen.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby) stars as Katherine, an ex-minister\/missionary who lost her faith after her family was killed in Africa. She now travels around the world debunking so-called miracles by finding scientific explanations for them. At home in Louisiana, she\u2019s approached by Doug (Morrissey, Basic Instinct 2), a science teacher from the small bayou town of Haven, who asks her to find out why the local river suddenly turned red. The small-minded locals believe it\u2019s the first of the Ten Plagues described in the Bible. They blame it on a little girl, 12YO Loren (Robb, Because of Winn-Dixie), they believe killed her brother. You see, Haven is one of those backwoods religious communities that get only one radio station and it doesn\u2019t play Top 40 hits.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Katherine and her assistant Ben (Elba, The Wire) show up and begin their investigation. She approaches it with her usual skepticism. She won\u2019t be easily swayed, not even when dead frogs fall from the sky and local livestock starts dying off. That\u2019s followed by a lice infestation and boils. So what\u2019s going on? It has to do with a Satanic cult and a prophecy about a demonic child. The only thing missing is an exorcism.<\/p>\n

\u00a0A few weeks ago, I wrote a negative review of the Demi Moore supernatural thriller The Seventh Sign. Considering how much I like The Reaping<\/strong>, I may have to rethink it. It could be I simply wasn\u2019t in the right frame of mind to enjoy it like I did the later religious horror picture. Directed by Stephen Hopkins (Predator 2), it doesn\u2019t really stand to close scrutiny. Plus, it really goes off the rails in the third act when things get convoluted. I wouldn\u2019t say it completely falls apart, but it definitely doesn\u2019t hold together like it should. I\u2019ll give the writers credit for coming up with a plausible scientific explanation for the Ten Plagues in the Bible though*. LOL! I can only imagine how this would have gone over with this Southern Baptist pastor I used to know.<\/p>\n

\u00a0You might ask what Swank is doing in a junky movie like The Reaping<\/strong>. It\u2019s a fair question. It could also be asked of Mira Sorvino (Mimic), Halle Berry (Gothika) and Kim Basinger (Bless the Child). Who says Oscar winners have to restrict themselves to prestigious films? A truly gifted actor\/actress excels in all kinds of films. To the writers\u2019 credit, Swank has plenty to work with. Loss of faith is a common theme in religious-themed horror movies, but it doesn\u2019t feel stale in Swank\u2019s capable hands. She makes her sense of loss palpable as she tries to help the little girl everybody believes is evil. As Loren, Robb does a fine job, an incredible feat considering she has no dialogue until the final minutes of the movie. Her eyes and facial expressions perfectly convey her fear and rage. Morrissey is rather stiff as Doug who\u2019s obviously not telling Katherine everything. Stephen Rea (The Crying Game) literally phones it in as a priest friend of Katherine, the first one to realize she\u2019s in danger.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Although The Reaping<\/strong> has a few decent gross scenes, the effects are CGI and look it. I was disappointed in that. It\u2019s not scary either. It does have atmosphere though. It\u2019s filled with a sense of backwoods dread and gloom that doesn\u2019t conceal the overall silliness of it all. That\u2019s okay, I like my Biblical horror movies to have a silly side. It makes them a little more palatable, don\u2019t you think?<\/p>\n

*= If you want to know it without seeing the movie, just look it up on IMDb. It\u2019s the first item in the quotes section.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Reaping (2007)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Horror-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 99 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, disturbing images, some sexuality, brief strong language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Stephen Hopkins\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Carey Hayes and Chad Hayes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Frizzell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Peter Levy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: April 5, 2007 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Hilary Swank, David Morrissey, Idris Elba, AnnaSophia Robb, Stephen Rea, William Ragsdale, John McConnell, David […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/The-Reaping-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5710"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5803,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5710\/revisions\/5803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}