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The Reaping
Rated R for violence, disturbing images and some sexuality;
Swank stars as professor Katherine Winter, who debunks supposed examples of miracles using scientific explanations. It essentially requires her to run around the Louisiana swamps in tousled blonde hair and clingy tank tops, trying to understand an increasingly intense series of supernatural phenomena.
It seems a little girl named Loren (the angelically creepy AnnaSophia Robb from "Bridge to Terabithia") has brought the 10 plagues upon a tiny bayou town known as Haven. Katherine and her investigative partner at LSU (Idris Elba) snoop around and try to prove otherwise.
Once you get past the frogs, maggots and flies you're left to squirm and wonder: Are they really going to run through all 10? Of course they are.
Peter Levy provides some striking cinematography -- all that blood-red river water contrasting sharply with the lush greenery surrounding it -- while other effects, including the climactic killing of the firstborns, look just plain cheesy. The fifth plague, dead livestock, also offers some unintentional hilarity.
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