6.4 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
As a woman struggles to come to grips with her past in the wake of her mother's death, an unsettling presence emerges in her childhood home.
Starring: Casper Van Dien, Agnes Bruckner, Caity Lotz, Kathleen Rose Perkins, Haley HudsonHorror | 100% |
Thriller | 16% |
Mystery | 13% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Pulling off a low-budget ghost movie is tricky; with no money for intensive digital effects or meticulously dressed sets, the filmmaker is forced to rely solely on ingenuity and elbow grease. A carefully developed story becomes more important than ever. The tone has to be just right. The acting needs to be on point. The scares should draw the audience in and catch us off-guard. I'll give it to first time writer/director Nicholas McCarthy—in The Pact, he gets a lot right, crafting a fairly effective haunted house film out of surprisingly few moving parts. There's a noticeable difference between cheap and inexpensive, and McCarthy's economic style exudes more of the latter than the former. Sure, there are a few illusion- breaking moments here—when the D.I.Y. special effects aren't as convincing as they should be—but McCarthy makes up for it with wound-up tension and a spooky, uneasy atmosphere. While the film does have some narrative issues—including a padded, drawn-out middle act—The Pact is plenty capable of chilling those looking for a low-key, spectral murder mystery.
The Pact very much looks like a low-budget film—the lighting and digital cinematography and color grading just aren't as polished as they would be on a bigger production—but don't let that stop you. The movie's 1080p/AVC-encoded presentation may not constitute eye candy, but it's free from overt compression problems and excessive image manipulations. (No digital noise reduction or harsh edge enhancement here.) In terms of clarity, the footage is actually quite sharp most of the time, revealing fine facial and clothing textures in closeups and generally presenting a tight, crisp picture. When it comes to color, the film has two main looks—a creamy yellow cast and a desaturated grayish vibe. Both seem slightly overdone to me, but this is a creative choice and not some objective issue. There's consistency here, at least, with deep-enough blacks and highlights that are bright without looking overblown. Digital source does spike a bit during the darker scenes, but never distractingly so. Overall, this is a stable, seemingly faithful Blu-ray encode, even if the film itself has a straight-to-video look.
Don't expect the immersive, carefully wrought sound design of bigger budgeted horror films, but The Pact's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track—like the movie as a whole—accomplishes much using little, with adequate dynamic heft and unwavering clarity. The mix is weighted toward the front, although you will hear some quiet ambience and directional effects during key sequences. Wind and street noise and insect sounds. Strange thumpings and creaks from the rear channels. A disembodied breath moving from back to front. The purr of Annie's motorcycle. None of this is particularly show-offy, but this is a good thing—it keeps the film rooted in reality. The action is backed up by composer Ronen Landa's reverb-heavy score, with snaking strings and moody piano lines. Throughout it all, dialogue is always balanced, cleanly recorded, and easily understood. This isn't a showpiece, demo-worthy mix by any means, but there are no distractions either. The disc includes optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles.
For whatever reasons—rights, presumably—McCarthy's original short film isn't included here, but we do get a decent commentary track and fairly comprehensive production featurette.
The Pact offers equal parts serial killer mystery and supernatural spooks, making up for its meager budget with a few solid scares and sequences of white-knuckle, don't go in there tension. It definitely has some pacing issues—it's very obvious that the story was expanded from a short film —but those with low expectations will probably be surprised by how much debut director Nicholas McCarthy has done with so little. The film makes a decent showing on Blu-ray, and would've make for a fun, Halloween-night-in-cuddling-on-the-couch movie, but it unfortunately doesn't come out until next week, after we've already gotten our October-long horror jonesings out of our systems. Oh well. If you feel the need to be scared in November, consider checking it out.
2013
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