The Pact
2012 Directed by Nicholas McCarthy
Synopsis
Some doors should never be opened.
As a woman struggles to come to grips with her past in the wake of her mother's death, an unsettling presence emerges in her childhood home.
Cast
Studio
Popular reviews
More-
Part of Dastardly Difficult December: film nr.23
Scary things are always personal. I personally get freaked out and scared by most ghost related things. Spectral photography, EVP, you know that kind of stuff. However, more often than not films that deal with this are riddled with cliches and drown themselves in ridiculous plots trying to explain away everything and therefore not scary.
This film sticks close to the rules, but manages to lift itself above mediocrity with a surprising narrative and some genuinely creepy imagery, all soaked in a creepy atmosphere that just doesn't seem to want to leave.
And that's the thing, when I'm grabbed by a ghost story's atmosphere without constantly getting my face rubbed in it, it…
-
Some decently creepy stuff, some good not-too-cheap jump scares, some effective atmosphere, some solid direction. But I still spent the whole movie thinking it was kind of crappy.
I'll give this a pass, though, because I think a lot of people would actually dig it.
-
After her abusive mother dies, Annie (Caity Lotz) reluctantly returns to her childhood home to settle her affairs, only to find a hostile, invisible presence there and a mystery related to a secret, sealed-off room in this truly scary, old-fashioned horror film.
Written and directed by newcomer Nicholas McCarthy, THE PACT is clearly the work of someone who has watched a whole lot of ghost stories and knows what separates the good ones from the bad ones. This is already established in the first 10 minutes, which is maybe the most effective and scary opening scene in a horror film since THE RING. After that, the story unfolds in a way that is undoubtedly familiar to fans of the genre,…
-
The only film I've ever walked out of the cinema, life's too short.
-
A genuinely creepy chiller,this has just enough supernatural intrigue to have you hooked. Atmospheric and dark with a distinctly eerie feel this is a decent little shocker.
I must say that I'm not great with horror films but my wife enjoys them so I get roped into them every so often. Chills aplenty as a grown-up daughter returns to the family home after the death of her abusive mother. When the girls sister disappears mysteriously,she searches in vain but is attacked in the house by an unseen force. Cue the usual policeman who suspects foul play,Ouija boards and a freakish looking psychic.
Scares aplenty,visuals that will make your hair stand up and some truly creepy goings-on with a sinister ending. Not my cup of tea but good nonetheless. -
The ghost story has always been my favourite sub-genre of horror. It is arguably the most cliche filled and derivative of the lot but, when done well, those familiar tropes can be powerful dramatic tools. The reason I love a good ghost story is because they use the audience’s imagination far more than a slasher or monster movie. In fact they are at their most effective when they show nothing at all; when everything exists within the minds of the audience and haunted protagonist rather than on the screen. Yet whilst The Pact is a ghost story positively packed with genre tropes only a small fraction are ever truly successful.
In fact the best moment in the entire film comes…
Recent reviews
More-
Este..... nose! me quede dormido toda la pelicula.
-
Finíssima pel·lícula que conjuga el serial killer de tota la vida amb els fenòmens paranormals de la vella tradició. To i ritme lent però intens a través d'escenes que et deixen el cor encongit. Fantàstica, i una de les sorpreses de Sitges 2012.
-
Nicholas McCarthy’s The Pact came in completely under my radar after somehow avoiding straight to DVD ignominy. When Nicole’s (Agnes Bruckern) mother dies it’s up to her to put the estate in order and get wayward sister (Caity Lotz) back into the fold. But spooky things start to happen, and a mystery about her family past begins to unfold. It’s a largely jump less atmospheric horror that sometimes tips from tension into dullness but has some great sequences and has a nice dull and dirty aesthetic. You’ll spot the plot resolution from the foyer. It feels long at 90 minutes and it takes its well-trodden story beats far too seriously.
-
I wouldn't be surprise to find out that director Nicholas McCarthy is a fan of The Changeling, as his debut feature, The Pact, shares that movie's delibrate, subtle approach to a story about ghosts seeking the protagonist's help to put a long-unsolved mystery to rest. That's not to say the movie is entirely successful - the pacing is uneven, sometimes plodding, and the tense in-between moments work better than the too-familar scare scenes. But as protagonist Annie (Caity Lotz) investigates her sister's disappearance, after their estranged mother's death, and pieces together their dark family history, the nature of the haunting in her mother's house to be quite chilling and unusually serious-minded for the genre as it comes into focus in…
-
"...de schrikeffecten en het ietwat warrige verhaal zijn intrigerend. Ook het spookhuis is goed gekozen."
-
Sehr guter Film! Stets spannend, überraschend, anders als andere Filme des Genres. Unbedingt anschauen!
-
This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.
-
Small but effective, "The Pact" is a haunted house thriller that is imbued with a satisfying sense of dread and tension. The film boasts a solid number of jolts and unsettling images, and the production makes the best use of its limited resources. While all of the film's narrative threads do not come together fully, leaving gaps in the already-spare storytelling, the overall experience is spooky, compelling, and memorable.
-
This one really surprised me. The beginning was super slow (like... really slow) and bored me, but damn did it get good. Aside from a few lameo jump scares, it really delivered on creeping me the heck out. The acting was so-so but the thing that drove me nuts was the ending. It was SO PERFECT until the last shot. Right after I saw the movie I looked online and found an interview with the director with him explaining what it meant. He said he took a lot of heat for it and was his only regret about the finished product. Besides the slow beginning and the last shot, this movie "got me rock solid" (-my roommate).