The Pact / Nicholas McCarthy (2012)
The Pact is really two films, one great ghost story that goes unfinished and one procedural stalker film that doesn't quite satisfy. Act I, is highly engaging, introducing a compelling central mystery, a confounding mystery and a great performance by Caity Lotz as Annie.
There's no doubt this is a film made on a budget, and you can feel the ideas outpacing the production. It still looks good and carries a real tension. There are just elements that feel like they had their corners cut. That's not a deal breaker when the story is this solid and well paced from the beginning.
After the death of her mother, we meet Nicole Barlow, who is in her childhood home alone preparing for the funeral. Soon after her introduction in the film, she disappears. A day later, her sister Annie (Lotz) returns to search for her missing sister. Strange noises, moving shadows, and disturbing visions convince Annie that something supernatural inhabits the house.
Here, the film is strong. Director Nicolas McCarthy provides unsure footing and leaves the viewer uncertain of where the story will go. He and director of photography, Bridger Nielson,use space, framing, and anticipation instead of loud shocks or gore to continue building a depth of dread.
Lotz is good as the cocky young woman losing her confidence in the face of the unexplained. She thinks she's seen it all, until she realizes, no, actually. She hasn't. She leans on a cousin to partner to find Nicole, who is gone without any trace. After one night, her cousin also vanishes, leaving Nicole's young daughter behind.
Lost, Annie turns to a local detective (Casper Van Dien), who helps her uncover a hidden room and a terrible family secret involving a serial killer who lived within the walls for years. As the investigation deepens, the haunting appears connected not to a ghostly stranger, but to the buried trauma and violence that existed inside Annie's own home all along.
This effective haunted house mystery abandons its strongest ideas for a lesser serial-killer thriller finale.
From the moment Annie tears the hole in the wall, the movie, too, crumbles. Instead of an otherworldly entity, the reality of a fairly typical killer procedural unfolds. Only, it seems like no one making the film knows that. It's pretty clear there's a hidden room and something hiding in the house instead of haunting it, but the film still carries on as if it's a ghost. Annie enlists the help of her spooky high school classmate, Stevie (Haley Hudson). She's um, clairvoyant or something and she senses something. Something!!!
It's spooky. I'm sure.
Okay, it isn't. It devolves from the tension that's ratcheted up in the early part of the film into something less interesting. It finds a convention and executes it poorly. Now, the budget constraints harm the film instead of adding dread. Viewers are used to these types of stories, and they've been done quite well.
The transformation of a ghost story into a story about inherited trauma and hidden family violence feels like a trope on top of a trope. The ghost story was good with out the metaphor. Making the metaphor literal is worse. The execution of the literal is another step down. Still, viewers can get something out of the mood and raw energy in the first half of the film. If you're going to add a hard-hitting detective to the story, van Dien doesn't quite fit the bill. He's still and still a bit too handsome to have achieved the Tarantino gravitas McCarthy hired him to deliver.
There's enough here to recommend The Pact, especially to horror fans who appreciate atmosphere over spectacle. For nearly an hour, it promises something memorable and genuinely unnerving. Unfortunately, the answers prove far less interesting than the questions, leaving behind a good film's skeleton rather than a great film's ghost.
Key scene
Spoilers below.
Annie reviews footage captured by a camera she left recording inside the house. The setup is deceptively simple: she isn't present when the events occur, turning both Annie and the audience into uneasy spectators. The fixed camera frame creates the illusion that everything within view can be understood and accounted for. Then something moves. The appearance is subtle enough to invite doubt, forcing viewers to scan the image and question what they saw before the film quietly confirms their fears. The scene captures what makes The Pact effective as a horror film. Rather than relying on gore or sudden shocks, it uses empty space, careful framing, and anticipation to create genuine dread.
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