In The Reaping Hilary Swank plays a former missionary who, having lost her faith, is now a debunker of supposed miracles, called to sites all over the world to investigate weeping statues, wall stains resembling saints and the bleeding palms of stigmatics.

She is asked to visit a town in Louisiana where the river has turned blood red, and after a series of frog falls, locust swarms, cattle die-offs and bubonic warts, it becomes clear that someone upstairs isn't happy.

While the movie's histrionic religious ending is perhaps a bit hard to swallow, there is certainly much here of interest to forteans, and the swampy, gothic Deep South locations are beautifully captured.

As part of the research for the film the producers brought in Joe Nickell, who spends his life, like Swank's character, investigating anomalies.