Sometimes a film's best avoided...

Sometimes They Come Back... Again (1996)
Starring: Michael Gross, Hilary Swank, Alexis Arquette, and Jennifer Elise Cox
Director: Adam Grossman
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

When Jon Porter (Gross) returns to his childhood home after the death of his mother, his good-girl teenaged daughter Michelle (Swank) is stalked by the restless spirits of a gang of intensely evil teenaged Satanists, led by Tony Reno (Arquette) he killed as they were killing his sister several decades ago. If Jon is to save his daughter, he needs to kill them... again.

"Sometimes They Come Back... Again" starts out okay but quickly degrades into bad effects and abject stupidity. Even allowing for the standard cast of Stephen King stock characters (the film is based, very loosely, on a short story he wrote, "Sometimes They Come Back") -- the haunted adult who has to face childhood horrors, the 1950s-style tough-guys who are still around as ghosts, the innocent child of the main character who is now being menaced by the dark past, the village idiot, the desperate cleric, and so on--the characters and events here are generally so over the top that it becomes impossible for the viewer to suspend disbelief. And the awful "electricity effects" doesn't help one bit.

It also doesn't help that the only decent actors in the piece are Gross and Swank. On one hand, it's good, because the father/daughter relationship is key to the film's story. On the other hand, it's bad, because whenever they're acting against other players, they show how bad everyone else is.

Truly hardcore Stephen King fans might enjoy this film. The rest of us can just watch it for the beauty that is Hilary Swank...

Saturday Scream Queen: Hilary Swank

One thing's for certain about two-time Best Actress Oscar-winner Hilary Swank: Neither of those were given for her horror movies.

While horror films already rank pretty low on the Academy's list of things to consider when handing out awards, there can be little argument that they've properly ignored the dozen or so thrillers and chillers Swank has appeared in since making her screen debut as a child actress in 1991.

It's a shame that Swank hasn't been featured in better horror films, because she is often the best thing about ones she's been in. She continues to appear in scary movies (with her most recent one being "The Resident" from the revived Hammer Films), so there's still hope for fans that she will be in the right project sooner or later.

'The Reaping' nets a thin harvest

The Reaping (2007)
Starring: Hilary Swank, Idris Elba, David Morrissy, AnnaSophia Robb, and Stephen Rae
Direector: Stephen Hopkins
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A former missionary turned college professor-and-professional-debunker-of-miracles Katherine (Swank) is called to an isolated Louisanna village to provide a scientific explanation for a series of events that mirror the Ten Plagues of Egypt as depicted in the Old Testament. As scientific explanations start to wear thin, Katherine and her deeply religious assistant (Elba) uncover signs that something supernatural is indeed happening in the town--something that may well be of Biblical proportions--and it centers around a 12 year-old girl (Robb). But is she a savior or a destroyer?

"The Reaping" is a fairly standard, paint-by-numbers supernatural thriller with religious themes that will you'll derive enjoyment from in direct proportion to the number of other films in this vein that you've seen. There's not much here that hasn't been done better in other films, although it is well enough paced, decently acted, and decently executed on the technical level. (It does feature one of the best "When Bugs Attack" moments ever put on film, and this sequence is when the film is at its best and its scariest.)

Like so many other modern thrillers, however, its fatal weakness lies with the script. It's not only unoriginal, but its shallow both emotionally and spiritually. The viewer never experiences the pain and horror that caused Katherine to lose her faith in God, and her rediscovery of it is likewise nothing that we feel any emotional investment in. (It's necessary for the plot, but we never get close enough to her--or any of the characters, really--to feel the process happening.)

The film is also not helped by the way it devolves into a special effects extravaganza where the viewer feels even more detached from the action and the characters than at any previous point in the film. Then, just to botch the finale completely, we're treated to a lame "twist-ending" denouement instead of some sort of emotional wrap-up to the story.

"The Reaping" rates a low 5 on the 0 to 10 scale... it's watchable, but there are probably other films you'd be better off spending your time on. It did hold my interest throughout... although I'm not sure if this was to the story's credit or Hilary Swank's tight tanktops and flimsy nightgowns.