"The Reaping" *1/2 (out of four): Incoherent mess about the ten biblical plagues afflicting a small Louisiana town marks another poor post-Oscar choice for Hilary Swank who deserves – and should know – better.

It's always the same. A formerly devout skeptic investigates strange happenings that can only be explained through faith and a few well-chosen bible verses. “The Exorcist” may have done it best thanks to some witty Priest vs. Satan banter, and TV’s “The X-files” made a pretty good run at this premise for seven seasons (“Millenium”, not so much). The latest trip to the seemingly unending end-of-days trough is "The Reaping", a mildly incoherent stab at bringing the ten biblical plagues to the big screen. Hilary Swank stars, in another questionable Oscar follow-up (“The Black Dahlia”, “The Core”), as Katherine Winter, a former minister who (wouldn’t you know it) lost her faith after the tragic (and entirely preposterous) death of her husband and daughter. Working now as a professional miracle-debunker at Louisiana State University, Katherine is called to the small town of Haven to investigate a river which, you might say, is suffering from a form of “red tide” poisoning.

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