This movie starts off great! Hillary Swank is a scientist who debunks miracles by finding their scientific source (like toxic petrochemical waste that causes a Peruvian priest's body not to decompose).The sequence is genuinely scary and packed with tension. The acting is great throughout the film and the cinematography is first rate. The trouble begins for me with the story, which becomes more and more familiar and loopy as the film progresses.
Hillary has to investigate a series of biblical type plagues in a small Louisiana town called euphemistically enough,"Heaven" (water into blood, locusts, dying cattle, etc). The problem is she can't debunk any of this stuff (naturally). The townsfolk believe the problem is a beautiful little 12 year old girl ( AnnaSophia Robb) who they believe has brought the wrath of God to their doorstep and want her killed. Katherine Winter (Hillary Swank) sees a lost child needing help.
The more she is drawn into the dark heart of the mystery, the more Katherine discovers her own role in a conspiracy (by The Devil) that threatens to shroud the world in darkness.
Hey! I thought the ten plagues were God's stuff! What is The Devil doing using God's stuff? Why is God letting him get away with it? See, this is where the whole thing really starts getting bogus. On top of that, the producers, really wanted the picture to scare the shit out of the audience, so they filled it with gratuitous shock cuts with impossibly loud musical shock effects. Not a well placed few, no, probably over a hundred of them.
Why not just make a whole movie of nothing but zooming cuts and screaming music? You could be looking at a basket of kittens or puppies and be scared out of your pants with filmaking techniques like that.
The end of the story goes particularly lame as Hillary find out from the young girl that she, Katherine, is carrying the baby of The Devil!!! (shock cutting and music).
One (I mean me) has to suspect that this whole production was funded by some Southern ultra-fundamentalist Christian group who wants to debunk any scientific explanation of religious miracles and was willing to put up the money to do it. Sorry, I'm not convinced.
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