Cinema review
Starring Hilary Swank, Idris Elba, David Morrissey, Stephen Rea, Annasophia Robb
Directed by Stephen Hopkins
Release date 20 April 2007

Former minister turned miracle-debunking academic Katherine Winter travels to the small town of Haven in search of a scientific explanation for a series of Old Testament-style plagues...

For a film about faith, it’s hard to believe that anyone involved had much belief in what they were doing. It half-heartedly tries to conjure the creepiness of The Wicker Man and The Omen (both of which it rips off), but ends up resorting to every horror cliché in the book.

There’s a constant deluge of cheap scare tactics, as figures appear out of nowhere, eerie moments turn out to be dreams and jarring sound effects crash out from the score. Of course, it's all topped off by the inevitable twist or two.

The background to all this is equally asinine. The debate about faith is played out between committed atheist Katherine (Swank), her assistant Ben (Elba), who gained his faith after surviving a gangland shooting, an old priest (Rea), and the superstitious folk of Haven, who believe the plagues are God’s vengeance against an young girl suspected of killing her brother.

In keeping with the book of Exodus, the first plague sees the town’s river run red, and once the cause is confirmed as human blood all notions of a scientific explanation go out of the window. This leaves the audience with little more to do than count down the remaining plagues (gnats and hail storms are discreetly skipped) and withstand the assault to their eardrums. The Innocents this is not.

Perhaps this kind of dross is to be expected from Stephen Hopkins (who also directed A Nightmare On Elm Street 5 and Predator 2), and screenwriters Carey W and Chad Hayes (responsible for the appalling 2005 remake of House of Wax and, worryingly, now working on a remake of The Innocents). But it is a shame that Hilary Swank has sunk so far into the Halle Berry syndrome that has haunted her since Million Dollar Baby. Joe Green

VERDICT: 3/10
Flat, lazy and pretentious. Avoid like a plague.