Keep in mind that Hollywood, as a rule, is simultaneously suspicious of religion and the first to adopt the latest pseudo-spiritual fad, be it kabbalah or The Secret. In the same vein, the Hayes twins (who also wrote Paris Hilton's House of Wax remake) see nothing wrong with damning devout believers even as they exploit their faith.

And who better to investigate Haven's heavenly signs than Katherine Winter, a miracle "re-worker" who travels the world debunking supernatural phenomena? Think you saw the Virgin Mary in your grilled cheese sandwich? Well, Winter -- played by a high-strung Hilary Swank -- has a perfectly reasonable scientific explanation for that. In a monologue that will justify the price of admission for anyone remotely curious about those ancient plagues, Winter shares a plausible theory on what really went down in Exodus.

But she wasn't always so skeptical, as a series of clunky flashbacks reveal (her days as a missionary in Sudan echo The Exorcist's unsettling Iraq prologue, as do eerie cutaways to a priest from her past). And she doesn't have to spend long in Haven before the town's X-Files-worthy marvels put the fear of God back in her. She's also the only one with sympathy for wild child AnnaSophia Robb, here playing the demon-possessed opposite of her angelic girl-next-door character in Bridge to Terabithia. Could this girl really be the reason for the plagues?

As far as the audience is concerned, sheer spectacle should be explanation enough. Frogs raining from the sky we've seen before, thanks to Magnolia, and locusts, too, metaphorically depicted as the crusty barely-human bottom feeders in The Day of the Locust (both films took place in Hollywood, mind you). The plague that impresses most in The Reaping is the first, as Haven's primordial swamp runs red with human blood.

Winter does her best to explain it, but then the frogs come, followed by the flies, livestock-killing disease, lice, boils, hail, locusts and so on. Trying to trump other disaster movies, The Reaping delivers one calamity after another, breezing through them in such quick succession that some feel more like minor inconveniences than full-blown plagues.

As the vengeful gods of this particular world, the heretical Hayes brothers have deigned to let the plagues actually exist, which makes for better cinema anyway. Faith issues aside, The Reaping's special-effects miracles (a mix of CG and practical tricks) must be seen to be believed. And the ending will blow your mind.

[as featured in The Miami Herald]