The Pact - DVD

Film: Although her mother has just passed away, Annie (Caity Lotz) had actually sworn never to return to the house of her childhood. But after her sister Nicole (Agnes Bruckner), who was preparing to bury her from the house, disappears without a trace, Annie breaks her vow. But on the very first night in her old home she is haunted by a terrible nightmare. And it gets worse: the night after the funeral, Annie's cousin Liz (Kathleen Rose Perkins), who has moved in with Annie in the old house with her daughter Eva, also disappears. While searching for Liz, Annie feels she has been attacked by an unseen force. At the last moment, she manages to escape from the house with Eva. But when she goes to the police, no one there wants to believe her. The policeman Bill Creek (Casper van Dien) even suspects that Annie herself has something to do with the disappearance of the two women. To prove that a supernatural force is at work in the house, she returns to the scene once again - and makes an incredible discovery there...

With his short film The Pact, director Nicholas McCarthy was able to inspire such enthusiasm at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011 that he was offered to also make a feature film version of the horror thriller. With a fairly small budget and little time, McCarthy put together a more than decent scary movie that relies more on classic goosebump effects than excessive bloodshed. It's true that McCarthy repeatedly uses the usual means of the haunted house subgenre, without really enhancing them with his own ideas. However, this mixture of ghost story and mystery thriller is always effective.

Right from the opening sequence, the film manages very well to build up a decent level of tension, which can also be maintained over long stretches. It's true that neither Caity Lotz, who starred in several episodes of the award-winning series Mad Men, nor Casper van Dien (Starship Troopers) deliver great acting and also the dialogues could be a bit more polished here and there. But the dark atmosphere that McCarthy establishes from the beginning helps to comfort over such weaknesses.

But towards the end it is dramaturgically noticeable that The Pact is based on a short film. It's hard for the idea to carry a whole feature film. And so the whole thing loses a lot of power in the last third, culminating in a somewhat strange resolution, which has its moments, but can't really live up to the expectations the beginning has built up. Still: even if Nicholas McCarthy hasn't delivered a genre masterpiece with his feature film debut, he still managed to deliver a decent ghost horror that can make up for its dramaturgical weaknesses with good moments of suspense and a pleasant goosebump atmosphere. For genre fans, for which it does not always have to be extremely bloody, well worth seeing!

Picture + Sound: The picture is very gloomy in many moments. Despite this, any blurring or noise in the picture is kept within limits. An overall decent overall sharpness, atmospheric colors and well-matched black levels ensure that the visuals of the film can leave a positive impression. The audio is rather subdued for long stretches, but provides some well-used sound effects to give you goosebumps. Good!

Extras: In addition to a fairly decent making of, which also features clips from the short film on which The Pact is based, the DVD has three shorter featurettes, the trailer for the film, as well as an interesting, but unfortunately not subtitled audio commentary by Nicholas McCarthy to offer. In it, the director reveals, among other things, how much his actual intention of the final shot differs from the general view of the audience. A decent bonus offering all around. The only real shame is that the full short film didn't make it onto the disc as well.

Conclusion: The Pact is a tense horror thriller that manages to get by without a lot of blood and has some really good goosebump moments to offer, especially in the first half. Even if the last third with the resolution falls significantly and can only partially convince, so the film offers on balance decent goosebumps entertainment on a consistently good level of suspense. The DVD is technically well implemented and also has a good making of in the bonus material to offer. For genre fans who do not necessarily need it particularly bloody, quite recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp