This review contains spoilers — proceed at your own risk. 

The Reaping isn’t the zero-star catastrophe that some critics have claimed, nor is it as good as it could have been. But somewhere before producers and editors slashed the movie into tiny incoherent pieces is a movie that could have been both a topical commentary on current events and a throwback to when horror movies were actually respected (and respectable).

Hilary Swank plays Katherine, a former Christian missionary whose husband and daughter were ruthlessly sacrificed by local savages while on a humanitarian mission in Sudan. Now a faithless professor who specializes in using science to debunk religious “miracles,” she’s asked to investigate a small town plagued by, well, plagues.

In Haven (Get it? Oh, the subtlety...), Louisiana, the river runs red, frogs rain from above, and victims of boils beg for Dr. 90210 to save them. Instead, they get Katherine and Ben (Idris Elba), her hunky, faithful and faith-full assistant who believes the plagues have a Biblical explanation after all.

The screenplay practically screams “Current Events!” as soon as our independent, scientist heroine is greeted by the God-fearing, breeding, family-centric Christians. Katherine hangs on to her scientific theories as long as possible, even delivering a fantastic monologue scientifically explaining the origins of the original Egyptian plagues, before things just get too weird.

This sets up a story brimming with religious-thriller potential, and the fact that the writers are smart enough to create a character as three-dimensional as Ben – a teacher who can devote his career to science yet still wear a crucifix around his neck, a scarred beefcake with a rough past who can cradle Katherine in his arms after a nightmare – makes me believe they started with an interesting screenplay. But then the filmmakers drown the story in overly long flashbacks and unnecessary special effects.

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!

Worse, the writers overly complicate their own logic as soon as we learn that the Bible-thumpers are actually Satan-worshippers. They blame a little girl, Loren (the impressively creepy AnnaSophia Robb), for the plagues but it turns out that Loren is actually a heaven-sent angel (!) who can’t be killed (!!) and can also control entire swarms of man-killing locusts (!!!). The Satanists want to sacrifice her to… appease their Dark Lord… or something (all the explosions kind of distracted from that plot point).