The Reaping: A Boring "Religious" Horror

Christian missionary turned scientist and religious miracle debunker, Katherine Winter, is called to investigate a small town in which the townspeople believe it is being attacked by the ten Biblical plagues. They believe that one little girl, Loren McConnell, is responsible because she is the child of Satan.

*yawn* I've little to say about this movie but I'll do my best. I saw previews of this movie months ago and thought it looked a bit like The Seventh Sign (1988) with Demi Moore but I wanted to give it a chance. What I got was a real yawner, nothing like the much better Seventh Sign. In fact, the first three-quarters of The Reaping almost put me to sleep. That first majority of the movie is basically a straight-up detective/investigative story. There is just a scientific investigation and discussion of the plagues in the Bible which we don't really see except for the blood red river. Only after that do we really get into the supernatural and horror aspects. Then it goes from boring to almost entertaining but still mediocre.

The story is unoriginal and predictable. It's your typical hick town of religious nutcases with a young girl, Loren McConnell, who is suspected of killing her older brother, Brody, turning the river into blood and, naturally, the child of Satan. Believable stuff like that. Clergy woman turned scientist and religious miracle debunker, Katherine Winter and her assistant, Ben, are called in to help find a plausible reason for the river turning red (the first of the Biblically predicted plagues) and to help alleviate the town's overly-religious and superstitious citizens. What follows is a slow, boring and tedious investigation into the river turning red and other plagues that arise, such as frogs floating dead in the river and cows becoming sick and going mad. Boring, boring, boring! Only after the river samples come back from the lab as being confirmed as real blood does the story pick up a little bit. Then the townsfolk create a mob to kill Loren. It's fairly entertaining after that point, comparatively speaking. Still, it's very predictable what happens next until the ending.