Thursday, January 17, 2013

Movie Review: The Pact (2012)


For a girl who loves horror movies and more specifically loves her supernatural horror movies, I seem to constantly be jonesing for something to affect me on that physical level of fear, even if it's only for a moment. The Pact barely made a buzz around the horror circles as far as I can tell, yet for me it was one of the best little movies from 2012 that I'm now frantically trying to catch up on. On the surface, The Pact might seem like your standard haunted house fare, but I think it has enough of its own thing going on to make it one to see.

At first Annie does not want to return to her childhood home for her abusive mother's funeral. However, when her sister Nicole has apparently gone missing from their mother's house, she reluctantly goes back to sort things out. A malevolent presence makes itself known in the house and Annie finds herself drawn into a mystery that is closer to her than she thought.

The Pact is a genuinely scary, interesting haunted house flick that is well-written and well-executed on almost every level. Yes, it is guilty of using SEVERAL haunted house/ghost/supernatural movie cliches, but on my first viewing of the film, the scares were very real. It sort of follows the typical plot of girl encounters ghost, ghost gives girl clues to a mystery, girl becomes a little detective and solves the mystery of the ghost's murder. Blah blah. And while I was still enjoying the film while this was going on, The Pact manages to put an amazing twist on the story that about had me falling out my chair with fright. Of course, this kinda makes a second viewing of the film not as effective, but it is nice to go back and figure out some scenes from a different angle.

The movie doesn't spend a whole of time messing around with any kind of backstory for the main characters, and in fact, not even Annie's detective work into the mystery answers any of those questions either. A lot is left open in this movie, which is going to frustrate some obnoxious people, but I sometimes like a movie that makes me come up with my own scenarios. Given the twist at the end, what happened to those girls when their mother locked them in the closet? What did they see or hear?

The actress playing Annie, Caity Lotz, at first seemed to me to kind of stiff and boring but she totally grew on me after a while. She's an average looking girl, beautiful in her own way, and while her emotional range still needs a bit of work, she carries the film like a pro. All her reactions to her ghostly encounters are believable, I just wish she had given us something to reveal what her childhood with her mother was like, because by the end, that was the part of the story that I became the most interested in. She also has beautiful, long blonde hair - and I don't know about females watching the movie, but the part where she gets her hair tied to a pole in the closet made me squeak a bit. Not a cool thing to do to a chick.

Speaking of ghostly encounters - holy fuck me, did this movie have me whimpering like a little girl at parts. I mean, that's what ghosts kind of do to me anyway, it's just the specific images that Annie sees of the ghosts in the house and one sorta-dream-thing in her hotel room are so very creepy and come out of nowhere. A headless ghost and a ghost spinning around on the ceiling were two big highlights and images that I couldn't get out of my head for a while. When everything else about the plot was so formulaic of other ghost movies, I really wasn't expecting The Pact to have the effect on me that it did.

I love the twist. Here be the big SPOILER, though I'm not usually one to warn. Turns out, there is a ghost in the house... and somebody else. Like, a live somebody else. Annie's mother's brother, the Judas serial killer, is still living in the house and of course, has been there the whole time that Nicole and Annie and Liz were. Even when the cop was killed, I did not see that one coming. This is where the movie really hooked me, and actually the exact second was when I about lost my shit when Judas started climbing out from the trapdoor in the secret bedroom. Think back near the beginning of the movie at some of those supposedly "ghostly" things happening in the house - the open closet door, the jar of food on the floor - and you realize that only some of it was the ghost and some of it was actually Judas moving around the house. That's pretty cool if you ask me. And fucking creepy.

My ghostie-loving self is so happy I saw this. Do not be fooled by the ghost-movie standbys that The Pact uses - the creepy psychic, playing Ouija board - because once you find out what's really going on, you're in for a really good time. I was beginning to think that good ghost movies just weren't going to happen anymore but The Pact changed my mind. See it.

23 comments:

  1. This movie keep starting at me every time I log onto Netflix. After your review, I'll give it a look. :)

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  2. I absolutey agree with you. I had never heard of The Pact until it appeared on Netflix live stream. The cover art completely turned me off, but I'm so glad I took a chance to watch it anyway. It creeped me the hell out. Judas crawling out of the floor freaked me out for days. More people need to see this movie.

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  3. i always found ghost movies to be boring so i usually skip over them but you make this one sound good so i might give it a shoot

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  4. Totaly agree with you..I just couldnt get the idea why would the mother hide her brother,while he was killing all these woman.Was she really that twisted?And whats with the eyes of Anna?Any ideas?

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    1. I think the eye thing was just to show the genetic relationship between Annie and Judas. Sometimes I'm not good at picking up on the significance of things like that so I really don't have any other ideas... need to study up on symbolism...

      So glad you liked the movie! More people definitely need to see this!

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    2. Judas was her dad. .. the cousin gives it away when she says her mother doesn't have those eyes that it must have been from her father

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    3. It's been suggested that Annie is actually the daughter of Judas & Jennifer Glick (remember the photo that was found of the mother & Jennifer together? They're both pregnant) so Annie & Nicole are really cousins but they must have been raised as sisters due to Judas killing Jennifer (maybe as a result of Jennifer finding out about the pact). Just a theory.

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  5. And by the way,the review you wrote is really gooooood :)

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  6. I still can't understand why that Judas killer lives secretly inside their house. Can anyone answer this??hahaha

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  7. hi,
    nice review. i also share the same thoughts about this movie. i think this is a must see, specially for the horror fans.

    you can read my review about The Pact here:
    http://oceansmovies.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-pact-movie-review.html

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  8. Really awesome film. Love your review but must admit I shat mmyself way before you my moment of bowel malfunction was wen alice was on the loo and judas walked past into the kitchen . I must also admit a little wee escaped wen I read your review excellent !!!

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  9. I have some answers to your questions ....my analysis is as follows..the scene where her hair and hands are tied up is the way the mother use to punish the kids...also its not just judas walking around when annie liz n kid are in thr house...Judas has beeen there since annie n nichole were born! Annie is Judas n Jennifer's kid!!! The most creepiest of all is this mother hiding her killer brother in a house where annie n nichole lived for 16 years!!!! That's some great story imagination! !!!! Loved the movie!

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    1. Yeah, I actually already knew all that. I didn't have questions about any of that! Thank you for trying though!

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  10. Funnily this movie just entered Jakarta this month whilst it was 2012 movie. Sigh. . Anyway thanks for the review darling. I'll give it a try today!

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  11. Annie was the child of her Mom and Judas, the brother, some incest going on there.

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    1. Would have helped to make that more clear if they hadn't deleted the one line of dialogue that explained it for sure.

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  12. This was according to an interview with the director.
    http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3202946/director-nicholas-mccarthy-ties-up-loose-ends-on-the-pact/

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  13. Just wanted to share that your review of this movie was spot on! really spooked after watching it in spite of the various cliches one finds in horror movies...thanks!

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    1. Glad you liked the movie! More people need to see it, it's so great!

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  14. Great review I really liked this film. I know there are supposed to be unanswered questions but the one conflicting piece that lingers with me the most is why the ghost of the victem seemingly leaves Judas alone. The ghost is capable of all kinds of demonstrations of force but doesnt use it on its killer?

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