Why is Hillary Swank in this movie? A two-time Oscar winner apparently took a left turn in her career (what we may want to consider calling “the Cuba Gooding Effect”) and ended up in a B-grade horror flick.

Hilary Swank portrays Katherine Winter, a former Christian missionary who lost her faith after her family was killed. She then becomes a world-renowned investigator in disproving religious phenomena. But when she’s called in to investigate the not-too-subtly named small Louisiana town of Haven (featuring such church signs as one that reads “A gentle Lord, but don’t push it.”), spooky hijinks ensue. But Swank doesn’t even have the decency to mimic Stephen Rea’s look of “Yeah, I’m slumming. What of it?” portrayal of Father Costigan, Winter’s one-time friend/mentor. No, Swank seems to be really trying, which only makes her efforts all the more sad. (Idris Elba, of The Wire, simply makes me happy whenever he’s on screen.)

“The only miracle is that people keep believing.” —Katherine

In this case, the miracle would have been our faith that this religious-themed horror movie would actually payoff. You almost get the impression that some movie executive was actually banking on Christians turning out in droves to see a horror movie trading off their story. Mind you, it’s actually a promising allure. However, I want real creepiness and horror, not boo moments and quick cuts. And The Reaping was simply horror-by-numbers:

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