nan | 楠木

In fairness, I think many critics have been over-harsh to The Reaping, the latest horror flick starring Hilary Swank. The film has quite a good opening and some disturbing visuals, though it is also full of clichés in terms of the horror elements. However, the film does take a few bad turns along the way, and ends up not making much sense.

Hilary Swank is Katherine Winter, a professor who has lost her faith, due to a tragic incident in the past (the details of which of course we’ll find out later on). She is now a active promoter of science as she goes around the world debunking myths and finding the scientific reasons. Because of this specialty, she’s called upon to investigate the mysterious happenings in a small town, where it seems the ten plagues of the old testament are being played out one by one.

Winter soon finds out that the plagues are connected to a little girl, whose family resides out of town and away from folks. She’s also forced to pick up her religion as the supernatural events quickly stack up and she’s fighting for her life. There is an explanation to everything, though, but unfortunately it’s not a scientific one as it involves a secret cult.

The film’s thrill factor mainly comes from cheap setups: sudden sounds and actions, which later turn out to be harmless or not that dangerous. Although these ploys are effective on me, since I’m only an amateur regarding horror (see the BTW section at the end of this review), they surely aren’t very impressive and must be very dull to the hardcore horror fan. One example early on in the film is when Winter climbs up a ladder into a room: her body is suddenly pulled up and we hear sounds of frantic wrestling. Two seconds later it turns out it’s only a couple of workers pulling her up and catching her by surprise. Such “fake” horror doesn’t work if you use them time and time again, and this film unfortunately does it a lot, always bluffing and not delivering genuinely scary scenes.

Plot-wise, the film doesn’t really stand up. Winter’s struggle with her past is supposed to be a central part of the plot, as it explains her mentality towards the little girl, but the flashbacks themselves don’t make sense (why didn’t she die when her husband and child was killed?). As to the rest of the plot, I don’t think I’d want to think it through and document all the issues. Suffice to say I think they were quite confusing.

Additionally, the film also offers a conventional twist at the end, indicating all is not well… perhaps a sequel? No thanks.

All that being said, the film does have some memorable visuals (though the CG in the grand finale was perhaps overdone), which can be pretty haunting if you focus on them and let your imagination loose.

BTW: One lesson the film did teach me though, was the importance of ambience. I watched this film in a THX cinema in Manila with my girlfriend. I admit to this being the first horror flick I have seen on the big screen, and I got quite a kick out of it, simply because of the ambience and the sound effects (and of course partly because of my girlfriend). Had I seen the film on DVD, or worse, on regular TV, I would’ve probably been quite uninterested.

5/10