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Reaping, The
EMAILPRINTWarner Bros. Pictures
Generally unfavorable reviews
Based on 23 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 22 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Horror | Sci-fi | Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Carey Hayes
Chad Hayes
Brian Rousso (story)
Directed by: Stephen Hopkins
Release Date:
Theatrical: April 5, 2007
DVD: October 16, 2007
Running Time: 96 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for violence, disturbing images and some sexuality
Starring Hilary Swank, David Morrissey, Idris Elba, Stephen Rea, William Ragsdale, John McConnell, David Jensen, and Samuel Garland
Hilary Swank plays a former Christian missionary who lost her faith after her family was tragically killed, and has since become a world renowned expert in disproving religious phenomena. But when she investigates a small Louisiana town that is suffering from what appears to be the Biblical plagues, she realizes that science cannot explain what is happening and she must regain the faith to combat the dark forces threatening the community. (Warner Bros.)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Lost in Space Under Suspicion
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
An effectively unsettling mix of Southern gothic and Old Testament hugger-mugger, with shades of "The Exorcist" and even "Rosemary's Baby" thrown in.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
One either likes this sort of thing or not. Even fans might not buy the ending in which more people get wiped out than in Hurricane Katrina.
Read Full Review >Variety Justin Chang
Revisiting the book of Exodus in a feverish Southern-gothic context, this lurid, often ludicrously entertaining slab of Biblesploitation builds an earnest case for spirituality in a skeptical age.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Michael Ordona
The seeds of most Biblical horror movies are sown in the Book of Revelations; The Reaping at least gets marks for originality for springing from Exodus.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
The Reaping is Bible camp, pure and simple. And for bad-movie lovers, it's manna from heaven.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
For genre fans, the horde-of-locust sequence may alone be worth the price of admission.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Notable for its enthusiastic abandonment of any semblance of narrative coherence.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
The script, which is rarely smart and barely scary, offers little more than a checklist of panic-inducing plagues, from locusts to boils to bad Southern accents.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
Swank and Elba work hard for their paychecks, but Rea quite literally phones in his performance.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
The only remotely notable thing about this particular jumble of boos, bangs and door creaks...is that it tries to wed the horror trend with the heated-up God market.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Ludicrous and overstuffed, it plows through the Big 10 of Biblical plagues.
Read Full Review >Premiere Laine Ewen
Some of the effects are squirm-worthy, if not actually frightening. Amid all the fake profundity, those moments -- you know, when the film is actually entertaining -- are rare.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
It's hard to say what is more responsible for the film's utter failure: Hopkins direction, the editing, or the screenplay. The result is such a muddle that one assumes each aspect deserves part of the blame.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
No belief on earth can rescue Swank from a film that's a chain of disaster chintz masquerading as a sermon.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Scott Foundas
Those two age-old foes--science and blind faith--tango yet again in this noxious slice of Biblical horror about a series of Old Testament plagues being visited upon a Louisiana bayou backwater.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman
Pardon the pun, but audiences will reap little from this satanic backwoods juju thriller.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar
The Reaping isn't a total failure. Swank is never less than competent.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
If only The Reaping had the decency to be coherent.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
Although The Reaping' borrows elements from classics of the genre -- rips them off might be more accurate -- it fails to build the psychological tension that made them so creepily good.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
As if this drivel weren't bad enough, the ending blatantly threatens a sequel
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
This high-decibel shocker is an insult to intelligence and faith alike.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 5.5 (out of 10) based on 22 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
John F. gave it a9:
Very good movie and the ending was very good and not what I expected.
Alex R. gave it a5:
Very disappointing. I thought that they could have done way more with the material.
Beca H. gave it an8:
This movie wasn't the worst by far. It had it's parts where they just made you jump. I really enjoyed the movie.
Chad S. gave it a5:
"It's holy blood," insists a baying true believer in Alejandro Jodorowsky's "Santa Sangre", but the indoor pool of red water that belongs to a pagan cult, is in actuality, paint. The church probably smells like a hardware store, but the cultists have been brainwashed from the ability to bestow objectivity towards the empirical fact that their noses, in all likelihood, detect a whiff of iron. In "The Reaping", Katherine(Hilary Swank) and Ben(Idris Elba) must've been holding their breath while they collected water samples from the river. Katherine actually looks surprised when the lab results turn up blood, undiluted(not traces of) human blood. If this was an episode of "The X-Files"(which "The Reaping" bears more than a passing resemblance to), Mulder(Ben is his evangelical equivalent) would argue with barely-restrained exasperation, "But Scully(Katherine, the skeptic and atheist), can't you smell it?" The scientist would argue, "So where are the flies?" Good question. "The Reaping" forgot the flies, but it surely didn't forget the locusts.
Sam F. gave it an8:
I actually Liked this movie, but can see why it got a low rating. It takes you on an apocalyptic joyride counting down the 10 plagues hitting a town called Haven. As the movie centers on a young girl who the townspeople are bent on blaming. The movie has its scary moments, and does not really give you time to get bored. The last half hour is really where it picks up and without any spoilers//I'll say its a very surprise ending. Not the greatest movie ever but certainly not the worst.
Allmighty Voice gave it a5:
Swank does her best with material that would've barely made it as an episode of "The X Files". She's a scientist bent on debunking claims of religious miracles, who finds herself and her partner summoned to a Louisiana backwoods backwater to investigate incidents that suggest the Old Testatment Biblical plaques have returned. More supernatural than straight-up horror, there's nothing new here for fans of either genre. For die-hard Swank fans only.
