Director: Nicholas McCarthy
Cast: Caity Lotz, Kathleen Rose Perkins, Haley Hudson

Although I certainly spend a lot of time here at The Unknown Movies criticizing movies, that is not to say that I don't have any sympathy for filmmakers who happened to have made a bad movie. I know full well that making any movie - whether it turns out to be good or bad - is a lot of hard work. It is especially tough for independent filmmakers, who more often than not stuggle with being burdened with limited funds and resources. It is my hope that with this particular review, I can share with any independent filmmakers who are readers of this web site as to how to make a finished movie with limitations such as those that I mentioned earlier. The first bit of advice is that just because you are saddled with an extremely low budget doesn't mean you can't make a movie, even a genre movie. If you go to my review of Manborg, you will see that the filmmakers of that movie managed to make a full blown (and very entertaining) science fiction movie for the incredible low cost of only one thousand Canadian dollars. There is also the fact that some genres are easier than others to tackle with a low budget. Certainly, a simple domestic drama is easy to knock off with just a few dollars, but other genres can be explored with that limitation. Trash film scholar L. A. Morse gave some examples of this in his film review books. For example, with the women in prison genre, he stated, "No need for an elaborate prison set; a jungle clearing, a barb-wired fence, a few bamboo huts, and you're ready to go. Scenes of working in the fields and running through the jungle make for cheap and easy footage."

With post-apocalypse movies, Morse commented that filmmakers could save a lot of money by not only going to any nearby barren landscape for a suitable backdrop, but that they could easily go to their local S&M emporium to buy costumes for all of their actors. As you can see from those two examples, imagination and ingenuity can help to tackle any film genre on a low budget. But there is one certain genre that has proved to be most popular for independent filmmakers, especially in recent years. And that happens to be the horror genre. Why has the horror genre been so popular with independent filmmakers? Several reasons, as it turns out. One is that the horror genre has been popular with audiences ever since George Melies made the first stab at it (Le Manoir Du Diable) way back in 1896. Certainly, the genre has evolved and changed much since then... but it shows no signs of dying out. And with an ever hungry audience for horror, any horror movie stands of chance of building an audience (and a profit) over many subsequent years. Another reason why horror is so popular with independent filmmakers is that quite often it can be pulled off cheaply. Friday The 13th was made for just $550,000, The Blair Witch Project was made for just $60,000, and Paranormal Activity was made for just $15,000 - and all made millions at the box office. These low budget hits point out something that has been true of the horror genre for decades - fans of horror movies more often than not don't mind if a horror movie was made for little money, as long as in one way or another the finished project manages to entertain, even if there are shortcomings like shabby production values.

So it's no wonder that today, especially with the introduction of affordable digital cameras and editing software, that so many independent filmmakers decide to make horror movies. I think that as long as there are movies being made, there will always be horror movies being made. Of course, it should be pointed out that with so many horror movies being made in recent years, not all of them happen to be good. But I am always up to looking at an independent horror film success story, because I like to see "the little guy" get some kudos. When I came across a copy of The Pact in one of my local Dollaramas (Canada's version of Dollar General or Family Dollar), I thought I might have found such an example. It was a horror movie made for a low budget ($400,000), but it managed to gross a little over fourteen times that amount in theaters worldwide (most of that coming from a successful wide release in the UK.) Despite that success, the movie still appeared to be fairly unknown, at least on these shores - which was another big reason why I decided to give it a look. The story of The Pact starts shortly after the death of the mother of a woman named Nicole (Agnes Bruckner, Murder By Numbers). Nicole has a sister named Annie (Lotz, Arrow) who does not wish to come to the funeral since their mother was far from being the ideal parent. Annie is soon convinced to come, but when she arrives soon afterwards, she discovers that Nicole has disappeared. Shortly after the funeral, Annie spends the night at her deceased mother's home with her cousin Liz (Perkins, Colony), and during the night Annie finds that Liz has disappeared as well. Seconds later when Annie is attacked by seemingly supernatural forces and barely escapes, she knows something mysterious is going on. The police, headed by a detective named Bill Creek (Casper Van Dien, The Tracker), soon after start an investigation, but Annie knows that the police have little patience for fantastic stories. So Annie starts her own investigation towards uncovering the truth and what happened to Nicole and Liz... not knowing that she'll soon open up a can of worms.

A budget of $400,000 is certainly higher than the budgets of two of those horror movies that I mentioned in the second paragraph of this review. But even though horror movie fans have traditionally been forgiving of movies of this genre with low budgets, the aforementioned budget of The Pact is still a limited one, especially when you consider that a sizable chunk must have gone to actor Casper Van Dien (despite his washed-up status.) How did writer/director Nicholas McCarthy (The Prodigy) do with the limited funds? Well, I will start with the basics of the movie. The production values are very accomplished for the low budget, with rooms given appropriate dressings from the prop department. Also, the production managed to get the smart phones and computers on display accomplished programmers to make the displays looks completely professional. There are additional details here and there that you might not expect for a low budget, from a wall being torn down to on location shooting in churches or police stations. While the movie does all the same have a kind of low budget look and feel, it doesn't look especially cheap at any moment. The general direction of the movie is also pretty solid for the limited funds at hand. We get things such as Steadicam shots following the actors as they move around their general area, and the movie has an interesting slightly seedy feeling throughout that manages to add a realistic feeling without getting to be too tacky. One quibble I did have with the general direction was that director McCarthy photographs the majority of the movie with somewhat muddy colors. Though I certainly didn't want a horror movie to have bright rainbow sparkly colors, I think McCarthy took things a little too much in the opposite direction.

Some viewers of The Pact might also object to the fact that the lighting in the movie (primarily in the deceased mother's home) is much subdued, making it hard to get a sense of the surroundings at times. Actually, this didn't bother me too much, since these darkened environments were more realistic in my eyes. In fact, there seems to have been a real effort to make the horror, as supernatural as it might be, to be more realistic than usual. For example, in several scenes where the horror starts to rear its head, there is minimal to no music being played at all. This is mostly confined to quick stuff such as mysterious shadows, but it also happens with at least one death and one disappearance. The low key portrayals made them stick into my mind. But even when the movie gets more elaborate, such as when Annie is repeatedly struck by an invisible force, or makes and uses a homemade Ouija board, the presentation makes you accept what you're seeing more than you might think. If there were such evil forces in real life, I think that's how they would be. However, the full impact of the horror displayed in the movie is somewhat toned down by some scripting problems. Why Annie just doesn't buy a Ouija board (cheapskate!) is a minor problem compared to the fact that Annie just happens to have an old high school classmate with psychic powers that is willing to help her (groan), or that Annie's subsequent investigation into the disappearances of her sister and cousin unfolds in a somewhat murky way that I had to do some online research to clarify a few minor plot points after watching the movie.

Even worse than the murky investigation was the way that the movie wrapped up. While I sort of understood what had happened, all the same there were a several glaring unanswered questions that I wanted answers to that were never provided. The movie seemed to suggest what had happened was a major element borrowed from a certain famous 1970s American made-for-television movie, but I wasn't sure how everything had been arranged in this newer movie. Also, at the end of the movie, I was to a degree not totally satisfied by the characters. Certainly, I wasn't thrilled by Casper Van Dien's trademark so-called performance (which he obviously knocked off in about two days of shooting), but I also wasn't satisfied completely by the main character of Annie. Her past seemed somewhat vague, she didn't seem that upset about the disappearance of her sister and cousin, and what was driving her to investigate despite the danger in the house was not made clear. But for the most part, I did buy this character enough to be more interested than disappointed. A lot of this was due to Caity Lotz's performance. Although her character Annie didn't seem as traumatized as she should have been by certain things during the course of the movie, Lotz manages to show her character has interest and determination to uncover just what is going on. And when the situation does turn to one of a darker nature, Lotz doesn't just make Annie a screamer, but one who has a believable backbone to struggle to overcome the bad situation she is in. Lotz's performance is one of the things that makes The Pact get a (marginal) recommendation from me. It does deliver enough to satisfy horror fans, and as a bonus it can give low budget filmmakers some good lessons as to what can and should be done on a low budget... and also some lessons as to what pitfalls to avoid.

(Posted December 20, 2022)