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The Pact

Release Date 08 Jun 2012 08 Nov 2012

  • User rating
  • Currently 2/5 Stars.
  • Critic rating
  • Currently 3/5 Stars.

  80% of raters want to see this movie

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AT 4.47 PM NICOLE BARLOW ARRIVED AT 550 CLAREMONT AVENUE AT 8.23 PM SHE PHONED HER DAUGHER IT WAS THE LAST CALL SHE EVER MADE Following her mother’s funeral, Annie reluctantly returns to her childhood home – a place that she’d rather forget. Now her sister Nicole and cousin have inexplicably disappeared, she is forced to unlock the doors to the past to discover the hidden secrets of the house and in doing so finds a room that she has no memory of. Things take a sinister turn and Annie soon realises that she isn’t alone in the house... From writer/director Nicholas McCarthy comes his first feature, THE PACT, an unsettling and creepy horror that will make going home tonight just that little bit harder…

Cast:
Casper Van Dien | Caity Lotz | Agnes Bruckner

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  • Critic rating
  • Currently 3/5 Stars.

Movies.ie Critic Review

THE PACT (USA/ 16/88mins)

Directed by Nicholas McCarthy. Starring Caity Lotz, Haley Hudson, Kathleen Rose Perkins, Sam Ball, Mark Steger, Dakota Bright, Agnes Brucker, Casper Van Dien.

THE PLOT: A recovering drug addict who’s also having to cope with her mother’s recent death, Nicole (Bruckner) returns to the ramshackle family home in California, where she is soon convinced there is a presence. When her sister Annie (Lotz) arrives the next day, Nicole is nowhere to be seen. Which wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened. A little more concerned is their cousin, Liz (Perkins), but she too soon disappears. Annie calls in Detective Creek (Van Dien), and the theory is soon put forward that they may be dealing with the ghost of a serial killer known as Judas…

THE VERDICT: Hollywood keeps shitting out low-budget horror films largely because they know that, in true James Whale fashion, all they need is a hookline and a creepy marketing campaign, and, yep, they will come. Like the horror-loving lemmings that they are. Every now and again though, one makes it through the system that actually has a little bite and originality, and such is the case with Nicholas McCarthy’s staunchly low-rent offering. The frights are sparse and underplayed, and are all the more effective for it, whilst the finale leaves you to make up your own mind about the monster in the closet. RATING: 3/5

Review by Paul Byrne 

  • Avg User rating
  • Currently 2/5 Stars.

User Reviews

    • Currently 3/5 Stars.

    hegothelips

    • Currently 3/5 Stars.

    Marty hanratty

    With its unpredictable twists and turns, this low budget horror from a first-time writer-director is an engaging affair. Pity about the Home & Away dialogue, though.

    • Currently 1/5 Stars.

    WildRose86

    Spoiler Alert: They use Global instead of Google and KnowIPedia instead of Wikipedia! Otherwise this film is a shambles of a horror, the worst thing thats happened to the genre. Make it stop!!

    • Currently 1/5 Stars.

    mart

    While it retreads well-trodden horror paths and shies away from any originality, it does favour heightening the mystery over goriness, relying on some impressive visuals ...

    • Currently 2/5 Stars.

    griffiap

    Think I must have been watching a different movie than the rest of the reviewers. Think this is just a low rent horror with 1-2 jumpy scares but very little original or interesting going for it. I really wanted to like this because it been such a bad year for horror so far with the devil inside and paranormal activity 3 setting the bar but this is just more cheap obvious hollywood horror. Like the other reviewer said if you make a spooky trailer, stick some quotes about how scary it is then it dosent matter how poo the actual product is. We need more originality in horror like Cabin in the Woods not paranormal activity 4.

    • Currently 3/5 Stars.

    Onionhead

    The Pact is a bit of a slow starter but please stick with it because it actually turns out to be a damn good movie and totally not what you expect with an interesting twist!

    • Currently 3/5 Stars.

    filmbuff2011

    The poster for The Pact tries to oversell it with excitable quotes and an image that recalls a memorable sequence in the original A Nightmare On Elm Street. Actually, this is a smart, effective indie chiller that relies more on old-fashioned scares. The plot follows a young woman from a broken and troubled family, as she returns home for her mother's funeral. She finds her sister has disappeared from the family house and she suddenly starts seeing things - ghostly figures in photographs, severed heads, a body floating just below the ceiling... She delves deeper into the family history to discover a dark secret... Directed with Hitchcockian flair by newcomer Nicholas McCarthy and featuring a convincing performance by Melissa George lookalike Caity Lotz, the film is a slow-burner but its occasional scares are well-placed. It's almost too low-key at times, but it certainly holds your attention. It has echoes of Stir Of Echoes, so if you liked that film then you'll probably like this too.

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