TWO-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank stars as Katherine Winter, a woman who believes in facts not miracles. A former church minister, Katherine turned her back on the cloth after losing her young daughter and husband while doing missionary work in the Sudan

TWO-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank stars as Katherine Winter, a woman who believes in facts not miracles.

A former church minister, Katherine turned her back on the cloth after losing her young daughter and husband while doing missionary work in the Sudan and now seeks answers through scientific investigation rather than prayer.

As a university professor, she has become the foremost debunker of supposed miracles and is called to sites all over the world. She has investigated weeping statues, wall stains resembling saints and bleeding palms.

So far there has been no divine mystery that she hasn't been able to solve.

But when small town schoolteacher, Doug Blackwell (David Morrissey), seeks her help with a series of bizarre occurrences Katherine and her partner Ben (Idris Elba) come to learn that sometimes miracles can be treacherous, and the line between faith and superstition is dangerously thin.

Hidden among the woods and swamplands of Louisiana, Haven is a town where the rules of reason seem to have been rewritten. Frogs fall from the sky, their river turns blood red, locusts and lice cause havoc and the local cattle look far from healthy.

And for the first time in her professional career, Katherine can't explain these phenomena with science.

However, the people of Haven are pointing the finger at an enigmatic child named Loren (Anna Sophia Robb) - who they feel is a harbinger of evil.

As 10 different plagues sweep through the town, Katherine is drawn further into the dark heart of the mystery and discovers a sinister conspiracy that threatens to shroud the world in darkness.

Overall director Stephen Hopkins does a decent job in pitting faith against science, but you can't help but think that you've seen it all before. It's Swank's presence that holds the film together, bringing bundles of sincerity and intelligence to her role.