What Hath Hilary Swank Wrought?

The Reaping isn’t the zero-star catastrophe that some critics have claimed, nor is it as good as it could have been. But somewhere before producers and editors slashed the movie into tiny incoherent pieces is a movie that could have been both a topical commentary on current events and a throwback to when horror movies were actually respected (and respectable).

Hilary Swank plays Katherine, a former Christian missionary whose husband and daughter were ruthlessly sacrificed by local savages while on a humanitarian mission in Sudan. Now a faithless professor who specializes in using science to debunk religious “miracles,” she’s asked to investigate a small town plagued by, well, plagues.

In Haven (get it? Oh, the subtlety), Louisiana, the river runs red, frogs rain from above, and victims of boils beg for Dr. 90210 to save them. Instead, they get Katherine and Ben (Idris Elba), her hunky, faithful and faith-full assistant who believes the plagues have a Biblical explanation after all.

The screenplay practically screams “Current Events!” as soon as our independent, scientist heroine is greeted by the God-fearing, breeding, family-centric Christians. Katherine hangs on to her scientific theories as long as possible, even delivering a fantastic monologue scientifically explaining the origins of the original Egyptian plagues, before things just get too weird.

This sets up a story brimming with religious-thriller potential, and the fact that the writers are smart enough to create a character as three-dimensional as Ben – a teacher who can devote his career to science yet still wear a crucifix around his neck, a scarred beefcake with a rough past who can cradle Katherine in his arms after a nightmare – makes me believe they started with an interesting screenplay. But then the filmmakers drown the story in overly long flashbacks and unnecessary special effects.

[Warning: spoilers ahead] Worse, the writers overly complicate their own logic as soon as we learn that the Bible-thumpers are actually Satan-worshippers. The townspeople originally want to "stop" the little girl, Loren (the impressively creepy AnnaSophia Robb), they blame for the plagues. But when their true Satan-worshipping is revealed, they want sacrifice her to…appease their Dark Lord…or something (all the special effects kind of distracted from that plot point).

But it seems like the writers were on to something there, even something as provocative as this: is religious fanaticism dangerous, no matter the denomination? Are God-fearing fundamentalists just as (potentially) destructive as Satan worshippers? Is it really so easy to equate them as two sides to the same coin?

Back in the early to mid-70’s, horror flicks were both respected cinema and cheap-thrills exploitation, sometimes in the same movie. Films like The Omen and The Exorcist used religious, specifically Biblical, references and scared up big business at the box-office and garnered critical raves. The latter was even nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.

Then, in 1978, came Halloween’s Michael Meyers, a silent, faceless antagonist onto which we could project our own fears, however secular they may be. The 80’s brought us Freddy Kreuger of the The Nightmare on Elm Street fanchise – a snarky villain who stood in for the audience by mocking the horny teenagers he terrorized.

From Scream to Saw, recent mainstream horror films have excluded religion entirely. Even 2005’s The Amityville Horror remake significantly reduced the role religion played in the original book and film from the late 70’s (this prompted the Chicago Reader to headline its review of the remake “Secular’s Not As Scary”).

The Reaping comes at a perfect time to return religion to the cinematic spotlight. With evolutionists fighting creationists, marriage and civil rights being tied to the Bible and a president that has repeatedly used God to justify his occupation of the Oval Office, a thriller could tap into the national tension created by these issues. Instead, we get bad direction, lazy references to those Biblical thrillers from the 70’s, plus a ridiculous Rosemary’s Baby twist thrown in at the end for no good reason.

The film never answers its own questions about religious extremism. I’m not even sure they knew their screenplay was asking those questions in the first place. An even bigger question might be what Swank is going to do now that she’s too old to play the tomboyish underdog. Because if she wants her third Oscar by the time she’s 35, she’ll have to wring something better than The Reaping.

Also check out: Spoilers!
And: Boo.