Review of The Pact (2012) by Joe A — 10 Nov 2012

The Pact is an effective and very creepy, at times, supernatural mystery chiller that achieves a lot of atmosphere on it's small budget. Flick is about Annie (Caity Lotz) who arrives at her recently deceased mother's house to meet her sister Nicole (Agnes Bruckner) for the funeral.

But Nicole is missing and soon strange things start happening in the house and Annie finds clues about their mother, a mysterious woman and a serial killer case from decades before. What does it all mean and what does this supernatural presence want? Pact is very effective at times and actually provides us with a nice mystery to go along with the things that go bump in the night.

The atmosphere of dread is well maintained and the cast, including genre vet Casper Van Dien as a grizzled cop, all do well with the material. There are some very spooky sequences and some good scares and it all leads to a tense and suspenseful last act.

The FX are refreshingly all in camera and work well, only a few dragging effects get overused a bit by the end. An enjoyable little horror/mystery from writer/director Nicholas McCarthy.