The kind of movie that ought to star George Kennedy, play rural Drive-ins and eventually appear on Mystery Science Theatre 3000, The Reapings brief is simple: take as many clichés as possible and throw money at them. Katherine (Hilary Swank), a former Christian missionary who lost her faith after her daughter died, travels to some Bible Belt backwater where rivers run red, frogs fall from the sky and a Creepy Kid stands staring at folks before weird stuff happens. There are also locusts, boils, stupid false scares plus it-was-only-a-dream sequences before the denouement, but youll have given up caring before then. For most of the movies 96 minutes, youll wonder where the money went, at least until co-producer Joel Silver delivers one of those noisy, effects-heavy, supposedly show-stopping finales that are his forte. Overblown and incoherent enough to make The Matrix Revolutions climactic tussle look like a masterpiece of understatement, the skies are ripped open, characters are sucked away by death rays and the viewer is left wondering what all this has to do with the Bible, or even filmed entertainment.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
