The Reaping (2007) 1h 39m

 

I love films that involve Satanic cults.  I dig this plot device because it's always more in line with some sort of hold-over "Satanic panic" idea of Satanism as opposed to LaVey Satanism or  Luciferianism.  It's as if everything has to be the extreme opposite of anything that people view as holy.  I also love biblical references, especially when it comes to something like the 10 plagues of Egypt.  This film served up both of these, so how well does it deliver?

The Reaping follows Katherine, an ex-priest that spends her time going to sites of assumed miracles and debunking them through scientific means.  As an aside, I would 100% be down for this as a career.  Katherine gets a call from a friend/priest warning her that photos he has of her burned themselves into a backwards Blue Oyster Cult logo and this is a sign of something to come.  She is then called to the town of Haven, Louisiana (it doesn't exist, I checked) because their river has turned to blood.  During her investigation the other plaugues continue to manifest all while she uncovers a secret Satanic cult attempting to bring about the Anti-Christ.

I liked this movie more than I should have.  The random made up prophecy of bringing about the Anti-Christ was cheesy in a good way.  Katherine's back story could've been flushed out a bit better because her reason for leaving the cloth comes from such an extreme situation it's hard to believe.  It mainly exists so we have a reason for the friend-priest to be in this film and be in contact with her.  The Reaping pulls a twist and an ending reveal, both of which caught me off guard.  So kudos to you 11-year-old movie.

I give The Reaping 4 BOC albums out of 5:

Friday's Choice Cuts: Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (Capcom)

I mentioned during the last mini-Cut that our household purchased the latest in the Resident Evil series.  Now, we played through it once and I've since watched the Super Best Friends LP of it as well as the Game Grumps LP so I've seen a ton of stuff we missed on our sessions.

Resident Evil (or Biohazard as it's known in Japan) set the stage for modern survival horror video games.  When Resident Evil 4 was released it evolved the series out of survival horror and into a more action-horror feel.  RE4 and RE5 were both great games but moved further away from what the original fans wanted.  Resident Evil 6 was rough.  Really rough.  It became the turning point which lead to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.

(A quick aside:  I know I'm totally skipping things like Outbreak, Dead Aim, the Chronicles games, Revelations, and Operation Raccoon city.  For the sake of this review I wanted to stick to the core series.)

Resident Evil 7 was herald as a return to survival horror, a game for the original fans.  When we first started playing this game we got super hyped on it.  There were jump scares, sneaking around while trying to solve puzzles and find items, and more importantly, a scary human element chasing you.

The story follows Ethan (you) going to a random home in the swamps of Louisiana after getting a video message from his missing wife, Mia.  You end up being captured by the Baker family that lives in the house and when you find your wife she seems to have these violent episodes where her personality switches.  You eventually are contacted by Zoe, the daughter of the family, who attempts to help you find the cure you need to help Mia and also cure Zoe.

A majority of this game was really good.  My issues with it come in the form of the boss fights.  Typical to an RE game you have boss fights where you need to find the target item or spot in order to win.  They broke up the flow of the game and killed the immersion.  To go from sneaking around a decaying house to suddenly having to fight a spider-person with huge orange eye targets all over its body is a jarring experience.

We also encountered a poor cut in this game where if you choose Zoe instead of Mia at this one point there's an event and cut but it still has you just become Mia instead of Zoe in the next scene which made no sense.

It's not perfect, but it's definitely a great big leap in the right direction.  The game looked amazing, played really well, and from what I saw of people doing the VR, it makes for a much more frightening experience.  There's DLC which revolves around each of the members of the Baker family but it isn't necessary and one is just a shitty mercenaries-mode esq thing where you play as Zoe to get food and booze for Jack to eat on his birthday.  There is some shit animation there as Jack appears to just eat the bottle of wine.  That said, I'm looking forward to when RE8 comes out... unless they fuck that up.

Best moments:
+ Jack doing sick burnouts in his garage
+ Old woman's face melting scene which reminds me of Raiders of the Lost Ark
+ Creep ass clockwork clown