Hot from teaching high-school low achievers in this year's Freedom Writers, Oscar-winner Hilary Swank is now battling with God's wrath.

In the small town of Haven it has a sign outside the church which says "Our God is gentle, but don't push it", and you know that is exactly what the locals are going to do. College professor Katherine Winter (Swank) was once a minister, but she lost her faith when working as a missionary in the Sudan. Her husband and child were killed by a fanatical group of natives and not surprisingly she then became an atheist.

While delivering a lecture at the Louisiana State University she talks about beliefs and superstitions, showing her audience slides giving rational explanations for so called miracles - she believes in facts not fantasy. Up until now she has managed to solve every divine mystery that has come her way. We see her at work in Chile where some of the faithful are twitching over a dead corpse, only to be told their behaviour is the result of fumes from an oil leak caused by an earthquake, thus dispelling any hope they had of a miracle - sadly Katherine is a bit of a party pooper.

So when Haven's schoolteacher Doug Blackwell (David Morrissey) asks for her help over a series of unexplained happenings in the town, she and her religious sidekick Ben (Idris Elba) pack their equipment and head for Haven. A boy has been murdered in the river, an event that has turned its water into blood. It's not long before they learn that miracle-busting ain't as simple as they previously thought.

The trouble is we have seen it all before, and done considerably better in Rosemary's Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1073), and The Omen (1976). Only the plague of locusts makes any impact and the frogs are just pathetic: unfortunately there are 8 more scourges to contend with as well. It appears that the Biblical ten plagues have arrived to make themselves felt in Haven. It is difficult to believe that a film with so much going on could be boring, but it is. However 12-year-old AnnaSophia Robb as the little girl the locals blame for bringing God's rage to their doorstep gives a mesmerising performance.

Swank does her best, but it looks as if director Stephen Hopkins has just left her to get on with it. There is a real feeling of disorganisation here, it's as if Hopkins decided to try for something deeper and didn't know how to go about it. But if you don't have anything new to say making a dramatic splash is always a safer bet. Unfortunately he manages neither that well. Like the remake of The Wicker Man (2006) it is a bit if a damp squib. That said, for first timers to the horror genre, there are a few scenes that may well make the girls jump, the music is suitably eerie, plus Swank is gorgeous for the boys, so all is not lost. 4/10