The Pact (2012)
Average Rating: 5.7/10
Reviews Counted: 33
Fresh: 22 | Rotten: 11
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 6.2/10
Critic Reviews: 8
Fresh: 7 | Rotten: 1
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3/5
User Ratings: 7,364
My Rating
Movie Info
After their mother passes away, sisters Nicole (Bruckner) and Annie (Lotz) reluctantly return to their childhood home to pay their last respects. While staying overnight in the house, the sisters sense a mysterious presence in their midst: noises startling them in the night, objects moving about, a fallen picture of an unknown woman posed next to their mother. Annie begins experiencing a series of intense and disturbing dreams visions that lead her to uncover something terrible about her mothers
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Cast
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Caity Lotz
Annie -
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Haley Hudson
Stevie -
Samuel Ball
Giles -
Mark Steger
Charles, Charles Barlow... -
Agnes Bruckner
Nicole -
Casper Van Dien
Creek -
Dakota Bright
Eva -
Petra Wright
Jennifer Glick -
Sam Zuckerman
County Clerk -
Anjini Azhar
Hindi Child -
Rachael Kahne
Waitress -
Sam Ball
Giles -
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Bo Barrett
Jesse
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All Critics (33) | Top Critics (8) | Fresh (23) | Rotten (11) | DVD (1)
The explanations for what has been going on are weird, fantastical and sort of reasonable, within the context of the story, maintaining the film's sense of grounded directness up to the very end.
Top CriticMcCarthy is clearly an economical director and what he gets on screen here - while hardly new - is still effective and occasionally creepy.
A tightly controlled low-budget chiller whose occasional moments of unexpected special effects are set up beautifully by long periods of suspense.
In the end, like a lot of genre movies, this one pulls from different inspirations, and so weighs in, by turns, as overly predictable and satisfyingly recognizable (part of genre cinema's one-two punch).
In truth, there's nothing here we haven't seen before. But McCarthy, who also wrote the straightforward script, keeps the pace moving and the atmosphere eerie (if rarely terrifying).
There's no pact in The Pact, which is indicative of this faux spooky tale's guiding illogicality.
Often painfully tense viewing, if The Pact proves one thing, it's that you can terrify without exploring original territory.
Nicholas McCarthy admirably tries to deliver both a terrifying tale of horror while mixing in more gritty elements, but doesn't explain much as to why.
Quite easily, one of the scariest films I've seen in a long while... It's a corker.
Debut director Nicholas McCarthy possesses a good grasp of effective, tension-building technique in this psychologically rooted chiller, in which dark, repressed memories of a turbulent childhood bubble to the surface.
The film has some cheap thrills ... but lacks more sustained tension.
A satisfying ghost story without leaning too hard into trends. It's not a deliciously overwhelming feature, but The Pact has modest vision worth a look.
The best thing The Pact has going for it is the way it manages to play its cards right, despite the fact that it doesn't have many aces up its sleeve.
More horror movies set in the 21st century ought to integrate technology into their scares as well as Nicholas McCarthy's The Pact.
When The Pact descends, finally, from suggestion to explication, the scares regrettably slink away.
[VIDEO ESSAY] "The Pact" is a horror movie with training wheels. It's for audiences who have never seen one before and don't want to be too scared.
At times scream-out-loud scary, with a second half that can't maintain the momentum.
To those brave enough to stomach the horrors of the Saw series, The Pact will seem tame.
The film cleverly exploits aspects of everyone's childhood.
Expanding a successful short, first-time feature, director Nicholas McCarthy displays more savvy than inspiration: there's some technical ingenuity to the jumps, but not a lot of logic.
Audience Reviews for The Pact
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Stevie: You've gotta go back inside of the house.
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- Creek: You live sixteen years in this house... you have no memory of this room?
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July 5, 2012:
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The Pact feels as if it's been constructed from an infinite number of inspirations stretching from classic ghost story horror cinema to the recent wave of found footage films but at the same time because of such great execution you could never actually call it generic. The story is about a woman who moves back to her childhood home to attend her mothers funeral, while she's there she get's thrown around the house by a paranormal presence and tries to find out whether or not it's the spirit of her mother. It get's more complicated as it progresses, to the point where it unfortunately becomes a bit non sensical even despite the fact there's a general lack of well concieved and intricate plotting. But after a fantastic set up and the developent of a creepy atmosphere it runs out of fresh ideas and chooses to throw out the typical cliche's aimlessly, and even adds into the mix the incredibly annoying "final jump", before the credits start to roll and doesn't end the way it should. On the plus side the acting is surpirisingly decent for a low budgeter and Nicholas McCarthy's stylistic direction and haunting visuals are genuinely creepy to the point where I wanted them to be terrifying rather than eery. I honestly wouldn't call it a scary horror film by a stretch, it's a lot creepier than the recent studio backed horror flicks, even if it doesn't explore it's mildly intriguing premise enough. Alhough nothing remarkable certainly worth a look.