Review of The Reaping (2007) by Jacob G — 01 Nov 2008

Rather disappointing. While the trailer-presented theme is kind of interesting, the actual execution is quite pathetic. Largely because concepts that could be interesting become lame plot holes because they aren't properly explained.

For example, the first scene depicts a picture where a woman's face is burned off. He interprets this (the movie wants us to assume his assumption is correct) as a warning directed toward the woman.

However, we never see any reason for her picture to have flamed up--I guess we just have to attribute it to "Satan"... however, why would he do that? There is no purpose behind it. It wouldn't be too hard to spin together a passable reason.

But instead it seems like they created this cool scenario, said "oh, other horror movies do this kind of thing" and let it go at that without really seeing how it fitted within the bigger picture.

And this happens over and over within the movie. Flashbacks that "are cool like ones seen in other horror movies!" but don't really connect to the present. As a viewer, I guess we're just supposed to say "oh boy, Satan's goin' all ape-shit on these people!" and leave it at that.

Well, that is an ultra-flawed way to write a movie. As such, this movie is ultra-flawed.