Likely to disappoint even those with low expectations, lo-fi indie chiller The Pact is almost bereft of anything resembling terror or tension, despite a few dashes of style from its debuting writer-director Nicholas McCarthy.
After the death of her mother, Annie returns to her childhood home, full of unhappy memories and lost secrets. Her sisters’ disappearance at the beginning of the movie leads her into direct conflict with a malevolent force, the kind that is conveniently able to flicker lights and throw people around at will.
The Pact began life as a 2011 entry into the short film category at the Sundance Festival. A year later at the same festival, the revamped, recast extended version made its debut as one of the two midnight movies, to a largely negative critical reaction. Still, IFC Midnight picked up rights for the film for what was said to be in the high six-figures, and quite honestly, it will make that money back with a strong opening weekend, good marketing and future DVD sales. If that is the case, it will be the direct result of marketing – a well-edited trailer and TV spots – as there is very little to like all in all once the credits roll. The film has one or two positives – interesting attempts to lead the viewer into a false sense of security, one or two mild jumps in the beginning. After the same tricks are used time and time again, I found myself thinking I had made the wrong choice for Friday night entertainment, as clichéafter cliché crept in from one scene to the next right up until the very last scene. The best thing I can say about The Pact is that its’ star Caity Lotz shows potential, and given her natural sex appeal, is likely to be seen again, hopefully under a different director, on this evidence. There’s a raft of unforgivable problems that plague the movie from start to finish.
The Pact’s effectiveness as a horror is nullified by bad acting and weak characterization from the outset, eventually compounded by over-reliance on plot devices and events that most horror fans will have seen in other films: flickering lights, mediums, possession; let alone the fact that the same camera angles are used time and time again, giving the audience nothing to anticipate. Fool me once, shame on me, and all that. Not to mention the totally unreal ways in which characters respond to what would be unbelievably terrifying events in the real world – reacting as if they’ve just been given a stack of old bills (‘I thought I’d paid that last week!’) – thus killing any notion of tension that may have been lurking beforehand; it’s hard to know exactly who to point the finger at, but given the stretched-out feel of the material and logical confusion throughout, the blame must land – with a dull thud – right at the feet of the writer-director. The ropey story has plot holes a-plenty too, easily identifiable by pretty much anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention; whilst even great movies have them, The Pact is not by any stretch of the imagination a great movie, and cannot afford them as such. Several scenes during the films conclusion are simply unbelievable to the point of being totally laughable, and should have never made the final cut.
When writing about film, I’d like to believe even the worst movies can have merit of some kind, but it’s hard not to feel conned by the trailer, which condenses basically all of the tense moments from the film into an impressive 30-second TV spot. The Pact is sadly one to avoid – no horror, no tension, no originality and no vision of its own – and its existence is more likely to confound audiences than its content ever could.
Deryn Paul O'Sullivan 