The Reaping Blu-ray features mediocre video and great audio, but overall it's a poor Blu-ray release
Katherine Morrissey (Hilary Swank), a former Christian missionary, lost her faith after the tragic deaths of her family. Now she applies her expertise to debunking religious phenomena. When a series of biblical plagues overrun a small town, Katherine arrives to prove that a supernatural force is not behind the occurrences, but soon finds that science cannot explain what is happening. Instead, she must regain her faith to combat the evil that waits in a Louisiana swamp.
I was admittedly intrigued by previews for The Reaping, though as I sat down to watch it
for the first time a few days ago, I figured that, at best, I'd be in for a run-of-the-mill, generic
horror
flick in the vein of Stigmata or Bless the Child, knowing at the same time not to
expect a film of such noteworthy excellence as
The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, or the original The Omen. It's hard, no,
darn near impossible, to top The Exorcist, the film that is unquestionably the
king of the horror
sub genre that derive their plots from religious and spiritual goings-on. The Reaping,
penned by Carey and Chad Hayes (House of Wax) is
yet another wannabe
religious/supernatural thriller/horror film that takes a very good idea and completely ruins it (like
many movies
seem to do), leaving me longing for anything, even the most putrid, vile, celluloid-wasting of
films, as long as it means I don't have to subject myself to The Reaping again. The
movie is chock-full of every
cliché in the book, overflowing with phony
scares, split-second shots of "horrific" imagery, and overblown and loud musical cues that
try really hard to make the film scarier than it is. This is the kind of film that I'd show in a college
level film class, should I be so fortunate as to teach one someday, as the perfect example of how
not to make a film.
Loren ponders which is worse: a plague of locusts or 'The Reaping?'
Hillary Swank (P.S. I Love
You) stars as Katherine, a "miracle-busting" professor of something (Religion?) at
Louisiana State University. A former Christian, she's lost her way since the death of her family
on a mission trip to Africa, and now devotes her time to scientifically explaining away
miracles, both those told of in the Bible as well as those events that seem a miracle in
contemporary times. After one of her classes, she is confronted by a man who
wants her to come to the small town of Haven, Louisiana, where he believes the first of the ten
Biblical plagues, a river turning to blood, has occurred. She reluctantly agrees to go, traveling
with her assistant Ben (Idris Elba, 28 Weeks Later), a stalwart Christian who's life changed after being shot
multiple times. It seems the residents of Haven are blaming a family who lives isolated from the
rest of the
town for what's happening, singling out their daughter, Loren (AnnaSophia Robb, Bridge to Terabithia),
and proclaiming the family to be devil worshipers. As more of the ten plagues befall the sleepy
town, Katherine must come to terms with her lack of faith as she struggles to scientifically
explain what's happening and ultimately comes face-to-face with the truth behind what's
plaguing the town.
When questioned about the plague of "lice," a character in the film responds it was the fifth of
ten plagues. If you ever attended Sunday school, you would know that the plague of "lice"
occurred as the third to bedevil Egypt. When even I am smart enough to identify historical
inaccuracies in films, I consider the lack of research on the part of filmmakers unpardonable.
The inaccurate representation of historical import creates in The Reaping a decidedly
shallow intensity in that, save for the plagues of water-turned-to-blood (the first plague) and
locusts (the eighth plague), the portrayal of the plagues that strike the town of Haven fall far
below what we might consider Biblical intensity.
Not only is the factual misinformation inexcusable, the acting and script are, well,
diabolical.
Hillary Swank's involvement is this movie is baffling. She's gone from Academy Award-winning
actress in both Boys Don't
Cry and Million Dollar
Baby to perhaps one of the worst and least believable
performances here (except for possibly The Core). She pulls off the role of a religious
scholar and university professor about as
well as Denise Richards pulled of the role of a nuclear physicist in The World is Not
Enough. Granted, Swank has absolutely nothing to work with, here, but the film's lone
bright spot, AnnaSophia Robb, manages to salvage a bit of dignity with a decent performance.
Warner Brother's 2.40:1, 1080p image presented with The Reaping is best described as
mediocre at best. The first thing I noticed about the appearance of the movie is that many of the
darker scenes in the film are marked by perhaps the heaviest grain field I've seen yet on Blu-ray.
I'm certainly not a grain hater, but it looked excessive here. Some darkly lit scenes,
however, don't suffer from an abundance of grain, and in those scenes black levels are very well
reproduced. Many scenes appear overly bright, almost washed out in appearance. The movie
also
seems to color shift at times, appearing with a heavy green tint in one scene. It's hard to say if
this
is intentional or not. The image on the whole definitely lacks depth and sharpness, appearing flat
and uninspired. Many scenes look a bit soft and detail is not
overly high. On the plus side, outdoor images look pretty good. The bright sunlight hitting the
trees in contrast to the blood-red swamp in which they stand makes for a nice looking image.
Flesh tones
also seem to be very natural in appearance. The print itself appears devoid of any blemishes. I
was
certainly baffled and disappointed by the inconsistencies in the transfer. When the film looks
good, it's
easily a 4-star, good transfer, but there are too many issues to give it better than 2.5 stars.
Faring much better than the video is the lossless Dolby TrueHD track accompanying the film.
Although many of the sound effects are generic, tired retreads we've heard countless times
before, there is no denying they sound great on this Blu-ray disc. Addressing what I consider the
negatives first, I found both dialogue and music to be a bit muted and hard
to hear at times, even
listening at my normal reference volume. In fact, the music's presence is sometimes hardly
noticed, playing second-fiddle to the movie so to speak. First of all,
it takes our mind off the fact that we've heard this style of music before, and secondly, it allows
the movie to remain front and center, which could very well be construed as a bad thing. I found
it to be a different approach nevertheless, one that allowed me to think about something other
than the movie for a few minutes of reprieve. The music, written by John Frizzell (Alien:
Resurrection and Gods
and Generals) is that typical of this kind of film,
stringy in sound, often with a demonic sounding choir accompaniment, and builds to a crescendo
until another "scare" comes up to silence it. On the plus side of the track, surround
sounds kick in quite a bit. Early scenes in the film reminded me of Hostel, with the
screaming in the distance and heavy industrial, metallic sounds coming from the rear speakers.
Bass levels pick up big time for a scene in chapter nine, making for a tense, engaging segment
that came out of nowhere. The scene depicting the plague of locusts made for a fun listening
moment in the film as these winged creatures imbued with Biblical ill-repute swarm around our
room, almost making us believe we're in the midst
of this plague ourselves. All in all, this is an above average track with a few nice, surprising
moments, and makes for the lone bright spot in this otherwise disastrous Blu-ray release.
Warner has wisely kept the number of extras to a minimum for their release of The
Reaping. The first and primary extra, Behind the Story is split into four parts that
are
95% fluff and 5% informative. Science of the Ten Plagues (480p, 16:00) examines the
Biblical plagues and asks if they are real or ancient myth (reminding me of something PBS might
offer). Proponents of both sides make their case,
and the feature plays things safe, concluding with a commentator stating, basically, that both
theologians
and scientists should meet in some middle ground. The Characters (480p, 7:00) looks at
the intricacies of each character, and how the actors approached them. A Place Called
Haven (480p, 5:02) looks at the small town where the film was shot. The Reaping: The
Seventh Plague (480p, 1:08) takes a behind the scenes glance at the bugs used in the
movie.
Last on the disc's supplements, but first in quality as regards to story-telling is AnnaSophia
Robb's Scary Story, (480p, 3:06). During this most entertaining three minutes on the disc,
AnnaSophia Robb narrates a story she wrote and titled Backseat Swamp. Needless to
say,
the story is more entertaining The
Reaping.
Suffice it to say, this was one of the worst films I've ever seen. I don't enjoy this aspect of the job,
handing out scores this low, but I have to be honest about my convictions and give this one the
lowest score available. It's a shame, because the subject material is ripe for a good story and
movie, but in my view, the filmmakers failed, miserably, at bringing this to the big screen.
Unfortunately, in this instance, a lackluster movie transferred to a lackluster Blu-ray presentation.
The video quality is questionable at best,
though the audio quality isn't bad. The supplemental materials are rather skimpy as well. The
Reaping may not be filmmaking at its absolute worst, but I would suggest everyone avoid it like
the
plague.
