Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.5

The Pact 2 Blu-ray Movie Review

More of the Same, Only Less So

Reviewed by Michael Reuben July 18, 2015

If you don't already know the modestly successful horror film The Pact, then you shouldn't be reading this review of the sequel. Writer/director Nicholas McCarthy's (At the Devil's Door) 2012 low-budget shocker succeeded by artfully misdirecting the viewer. What started as a haunted-house story gradually morphed into something else, and McCarthy used the narrative uncertainty to amplify the film's creeping sense of dread. Casey Broadwater's Blu-ray review aptly captured the flavor of The Pact without revealing any of its surprises. No such restraint is possible in reviewing the sequel, which I will tell you upfront isn't worth your time. Continue at your own risk of spoiling the first, and much superior, film.

McCarthy's The Pact did well enough that its producers were inspired to hire someone else to dream up a sequel. There being no shortage of hungry genre filmmakers, the writing/directing team of Dallas Richard Hallam and Richard Horvath leapt at the chance. McCarthy had dropped a hint at the end of The Pact that the spirit of the so-called "Judas Killer" remained an active presence; so Hallam and Horvath began imagining how that spirit of the late serial killer might manifest itself. The sequel's credibility appeared to be enhanced, and its connection to the original film strengthened, when The Pact's star, Caity Lotz, agreed to reprise her role as Annie Barlow.

An unstated period of time has passed since the events of the first film. With the death of Charles Barlow (Mark Steger), the unsolved string of murders committed by the "Judas Killer" are, at long last, closed cases. But now a copycat has emerged, who stages crime scenes bearing unmistakable signatures of the Judas Killer that were never made public, plus a few twists. One of them is a message written in the victim's blood: "He Showed Me the Way".

Among the cops investigating the new cases is Daniel Meyer (Scott Michael Foster). His live-in girlfriend, to whom he is planning to propose, is June Abbott (Camilla Luddington), who works as a crime scene cleaner and often gets tips from Daniel about prospective jobs. Because of her occupation, June is not rattled by blood and gore, but she becomes terrified when she begins experiencing visions of crime scenes she has never visited—scenes that resemble those of the new Judas copycat.

Daniel is already concerned that June is driving herself too hard, working at both her cleaning job and as a writer and illustrator of graphic novels. June's response is that she needs every penny she can earn to pay for rehab for her mother, a habitual drug abuser named Maggie (Amy Pietz), who looks so young that she must have had June as a teen. It is obvious from their interactions that the roles have been reversed for a long time, with June playing the adult and Maggie the erring child.

As June's visions intensify, the Judas copycat's crimes move closer to home, to the point where June herself becomes a suspect. Daniel, of course, insists that his girlfriend cannot be a killer, but his superior, Lt. Carver (Nicki Micheaux), and the FBI profiler following the case, Agent Ballard (Patrick Fischler), are not easily persuaded. Both to clear her name and to fight the evil that has invaded her life, June contacts the only person she knows who has expertise on Charles Barlow, a/k/a the Judas Killer: his niece, Annie Barlow (Lotz), who discovered and killed him in the first film. Though initially reluctant to become involved again, Annie agrees to help June and takes her to see the psychic, Stevie (Haley Hudson), who first put Annie on Barlow's trail. Forbidden by her family and friends to go anywhere near the Judas case again, Stevie nevertheless slips Annie and June enough hints to put them on the right track.

Hallam and Horvath do their best to create the collusion between ghostly forces and human terrors that McCarthy straddled effectively in The Pact, but they're hampered by sequel-itis. McCarthy's audience didn't know what to expect, and he could shock them with the mid-story reveal of a corporeal agency who was responsible for at least some of the strange phenomena being experienced by the heroine. Viewers of the sequel can't be caught similarly off-guard, and its creators would have been bolder to try an entirely different plot. Hallam and Horvath don't seem to realize that, by opening with a police investigation into a serial killer, they've already forfeited McCarthy's biggest advantage at the start of The Pact, which was the heroine's isolation engendered by a family funeral for a mother who was loved by neither of her two daughters. The eruption of a poltergeist into that world of emotional (and visual) claustrophobia was frightening in and of itself, as was the gradual discovery that the emanations were being caused by a very real threat hiding out in our world. By trying to duplicate McCarthy's template on a much broader canvas, his imitators fail to generate any tension, and the earthly villain becomes easy to spot long before the filmmakers provide their big reveal. (Not that the copycat's motivation makes any sense; the identity is dictated by arbitrary plot mechanics, not by any real character motivation.)

The Pact 2 leaves room at the end for a third installment, but hopefully the producers will have enough sense to let this concept go to its well-earned final rest. The Judas Killer was a feral, barely human creature in the first film. In the second, he's meant to be some sort of inspiration to a disciple, but when he appears as what is supposed to be some sort of spirit, he's very obviously an actor trying to compensate for effects work that the budget cannot support. He isn't scary so much as laughable.

The Pact 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

According to the behind-the-scenes featurette in the extras, The Pact 2 lost its original cinematographer just before shooting and hired DP Carmen Cabana (Bullet) at the last minute. Shooting on Red (judging by the on-set footage in the EPK), Cabana and her crew plunged in and saved the film. MPI Media's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray has presumably been sourced directly from the digital colorist's post-production output.

The image of The Pact 2 has the same low-budget DV aesthetic as the original film, but thanks to both DP Cabana's lighting and the broader canvas on which the story is told, the image is often brighter and the colors more varied. This may not be advantageous for the story, but it makes for more interesting visuals, especially in the various crime scenes where June's work takes her and in an unusual locale like the one depicted in screenshot #4, which June finds while investigating her visions. The Pact made a virtue out of darkness, but the sequel relies more on visual oddity (where the film is strong) and narrative logic (where it isn't).

Within the limits of the film's tiny budget, the Blu-ray image is sharply detailed, with solid blacks and a chilly palette that makes even the reds of blood seem drained of life. Video noise, banding and artifacts were wholly absent, and the average bitrate of 21.97 Mbps is adequate for digitally acquired material, especially in a film with such deliberate pacing and minimal action. The only negative is an occasional softening of the image that appears to be the product of post-processing, although it is difficult to tell whether or not this was intentional.

The Pact 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The 5.1 soundtrack for The Pact 2, encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA, follows in the footsteps of the original film by keeping the main action in the front and using the rear channels for atmosphere and the occasional directional effect. Because the sequel involves a more varied selection of locales, the environmental ambiance is also more varied and interesting, but the sound mix remains low-key, especially since the sequel is less of a ghost story than the first film. Carl Sondrol provided the score.

As is typical on MPI releases, an alternate PCM 2.0 soundtrack is available.

The Pact 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Dark Hereafter (1080p; 1.78:1; 17:41): This extended EPK provides a frank overview (complete with spoiler warning) of how Hallam and Horvath approached the process of designing a sequel. The two writer/directors are interviewed, along with stars Lotz and Luddington.



• Trailer (1080p; 1.85:1; 1:50): "It's starting again."



• Additional Trailers: At startup the disc plays trailers for Asmodexia, The Pact, Hangar 10 and Inner Demons, which can be skipped with the chapter forward button and are not otherwise available once the disc loads.

The Pact 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

One cannot blame two aspiring horror writer/directors for accepting the opportunity to make the best they could out of a bad idea. As the late John Frankenheimer used to say, a filmmaker learns more from making a movie than from not making a movie. It was the producers of The Pact who were responsible for the questionable decision to build a franchise on such shaky foundations. As The Pact's creator showed in his follow-up venture, At the Devil's Door, his favorite approach is to mash up horror genres in an effort to manipulate audience expectations. It's an interesting technique but not one that establishes a repeatable template. If you liked The Pact, I very much doubt you'll find the sequel satisfying. If you've never seen The Pact, the sequel will make little sense while spoiling whatever pleasure the original has to offer. In either case, not recommended.