The Pact – A Movie Review
After their mother passes away, sisters Nicole and Annie reluctantly return to their childhood home to pay their last respects. While staying overnight in the house, the sisters sense a mysterious presence in their midst: noises startling them in the night, objects moving about, a fallen picture of an unknown woman posed next to their mother. Annie begins experiencing a series of intense and disturbing dreams visions that lead her to uncover something terrible about her mothers past that is finally revealing itself.
In Theaters: July 6, 2012; Genres : Adaptation, Horror, Thriller; Run Time: 1 hour 31 minutes
Director: Nicholas McCarthy
Cast: Caity Lotz, Casper Van Dien, Haley Hudson, Kathleen Rose Perkins, Samuel Ball, Agnes Bruckner
This one is no longer in theaters. It was more of an Indie film, and apparently never got wide distribution. We heard about it on CBS Sunday Morning when David Edelstein mentioned as a good horror movie during a segment on the show. We’ve generally found ourselves in agreement with him on things he likes, so we found this one available on Amazon Instant Download.
“The Pact” is a decent horror/thriller film. The basic plot seems simple enough — a young woman’s sister convinces her to come back for their mother’s funeral, despite that the two sisters were estranged from their mother for a while. When she comes back, her sister is gone, and strange, supernatural things begin to happen. (In fact, this may be the messiest ghost you’ll see.
“The Pact” has a lot going for it. First of all, breaking from the standard formula, there is no eye-rolling forced romance. Secondly, the lead character behaves like you’d expect a person to behave! When weird things start happening, she leaves the house. When she has to go back, she brings a police officer. When she gets in danger, she screams and flails and kicks. And while there are a few of the classic horror movie, “why the hell would you do that,” moments, there are fewer of those than are typical. And finally, the ending pretty much wrapped up the story-line without having to contort itself into something unrelated to the rest of the story.
There’s a slow character driven opening with Caity Lotz as Annie who shoulders the weight of the film throughout. Casper Van Dien gives a heavy weight performance, probably his best as Creek. There’s a rich score by Ronen Landa that adds tension and the location shoot is crisp reminiscent of setting of White Noise.
The story develops slowly at the beginning. There are well spaced scenes of action, and a lot that is unseen, which often works to create the greatest suspence and tension. Lay was not liking the movie during the first 45 minutes, but stuck it out, and gives it a pretty decent rating. I felt pretty much the same.
(2 votes, average: 8.00 out of 10)
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