Directed and written by Nicholas McCarthy, his first full length feature The Pact is an interesting movie to say the least.
It opens with Nicole (Agnes Bruckner) trying to put together funeral arrangements for her recently deceased mother with little help from her sister Annie (Caity Lotz), who still has hatred towards the abusive woman, even if she is dead. After some persuasion Annie agrees to come down and help, gearing up on her motorbike and riding into town the next day. She arrives and ex-junkie Nicole is nowhere to be seen.
Annie firstly thinks that her sister may be using again or has taken off somewhere but she soon starts to get an eerie feel from the house and odd and creepy things start to happen. She discovers that the house, as small as it is, seems to have an extra room she never suspected was there. It makes us suspect, rather unnervingly, that this house may be larger on the inside than it is on the outside.
What you believe is just another haunted house movie ends up to be much more than that. (I don’t want to say much more and spoil anything).
The Pact builds up its suspense, the storyline and its characters and has you on the edge of your seat and wanting to know what happens next. It does a great job on playing on fears of the unknown.
The Pact delivers efficient writing, natural acting (also starring Casper Van Dien) that helps you believe the actions and it’s smart, moody, and really pretty scary plot when you think about it. It’s really well made and McCarthy seems to have an uncanny sense of craft when shooting the spook scenes.
For any horror fans that haven’t seen it, I’d definitely say check The Pact out.
WICKED RATING: 6.5/10
Title: The Pact
Directors: Nicholas McCarthy
Writer(s): Nicholas McCarthy
Stars: Caity Lotz, Casper Van Dien, Mark Steger
Year: 2012
Studio/ Production Co: Preferred Content
Budget: (unknown)
Language: English
Length: 89mins
Sub-Genre: Mystery, Thriller
