Hollywood Gothique
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The Reaping review

In case you haven’t noticed, our review of THE REAPING is posted here.

It’s just about every bit as bad as you’ve heard, but in a weird kind of way that makes it almost – almost – endearing…if only because the film opened a day before the disappointing GRINDHOUSE. You see, inspite of Oscar-winner Hilary Swank in the lead and some slick studio production values, THE REAPING’s silly story of psuedo-Bibilica horror, complete with some backwoods yahoos eager to kill a young girl they blame for the plagues plaguing their town, is more in the spirit of real grindhouse cinema.

I mean, the movie even gives the leading lady a faithful black sidekick (with whom, it goes almost without saying, she cannot possibly be romantically involved) who – in the great tradition of racial stereotypes – gets killed off so that the heroine can feel real bad.

It’s tokenism taken to the max – completely unapologetic.

Don Imus would be proud…