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Today's review is of the 2012 film The Pact. And in all honesty, this will probably be quite a short review, because the less said about this film, the better. 
The plot follows Annie Barlow (Caity Lotz) who returns to her mother's home in order to attend her funeral. However, her sister mysteriously vanished within the house and supernatural happenings begin occurring whilst Annie herself is still occupying the house, which forces her to seek the assistance of a police officer, Bill Creek (Casper Van Dien).
Positives
Yeah, I'm just going to go ahead and skip this bit.
Negatives
This film commits the worst crime a film possibly can; it bores. I can't remember the last time I have been so unbelievably bored watching a film. After 5 minutes I began checking my phone, and it was down to an expansive variety of reasons.
Firstly the acting, it ranges from barely tolerable to god awful. Caity Lotz wore the same mildly confused, mildly moody teenage expression across her face for 90% of her scenes, it was like she was a blonde Kristen Stewart, and she did nothing to make me care about her character and what she was enduring at all. Casper Van Dien sounds like he's trying to impersonate Christian Bale's Batman with his comically low, gruff voice, which just sounded ridiculous. Kathleen Rose Perkins, who portrays another vanishing victim, had about the same amount of charisma as a teaspoon. So I'm guessing the casting directors were high or something when casting the roles here, because there was barely a flicker of any talent whatsoever from any member of the cast. Nevertheless, Haley Hudson who portrays a sort of medium, was actually pretty impressive, so at least one good decision was made in regards to the proficiency of the actors here.
The direction was a bit of a mess too, there is literally a two minute scene where all we see is a woman tossing and turning in her bed, occasionally sighing. Two minutes. The scene was so unnecessarily long, and it was marked probably the 15th time I returned to my phone, and we were only about 30 minutes in at this stage. The film also relies on jump scares too much, and I hate jump scares. One of the reasons is because I struggle to control my bladder, but also because it's such a lazy tool to provoke a response from the audience, and it signifies to me that there's not much else going on that they're expecting to frighten us, and it's a last resort mechanism.
The writing was a bit daft too. For example, when it begins to look as though someone is intruding in Annie's house, she's standing in the kitchen, a room commonly known for possessing many knives that could conveniently be used as a weapon. But does Annie pick one up? No, instead she runs around her house for a bit... However, she does eventually pick a knife up, but even so, for a grown woman, you'd expect her to be more intuitive and sensible. Additionally, the whole "the ghosts aren't attacking you, they're trying to help you" has been done before, so I wasn't surprised at this revelation. Again, nothing was going on to make me interested, the characters were dull, the story wasn't original nor was it enticing, the dialogue was okay at best, it was just pretty shocking really, and most definitely not in a good way.
I would have included the ending within the positive section of this review, but they totally ruin it at the end. But, before that, it was tense and a dreadful ambience was established and maintained throughout this part. The concept of using a woman's hair to tie and restrain her to something was something I found quite inventive, and that was certainly an interesting aspect. Anyway, what really aggravated me was in the following moments we eventually see Annie overcome her tormentor, and it looks like Annie's life returns to normal, and it was redeeming itself a bit. Then, during the last few seconds, they use another silly, and massively perplexing jump scare that juxtaposes everything that's just gone on.
Conclusion
How this film holds a 5.8 score on IMDb will be one of the biggest mysteries of my life I think, for I found this film to contain very few points of merit, and this has to be the most boring film I have watched all year. There was a spot of brilliant acting though, and the ending was pretty good until the final scene. But I'm going to have to be strict and give it, because of the silly cliches, the stupid actions made by the characters, and the horrific acting by every other member of the cast, a:
The plot follows Annie Barlow (Caity Lotz) who returns to her mother's home in order to attend her funeral. However, her sister mysteriously vanished within the house and supernatural happenings begin occurring whilst Annie herself is still occupying the house, which forces her to seek the assistance of a police officer, Bill Creek (Casper Van Dien).
Positives
Yeah, I'm just going to go ahead and skip this bit.
Negatives
This film commits the worst crime a film possibly can; it bores. I can't remember the last time I have been so unbelievably bored watching a film. After 5 minutes I began checking my phone, and it was down to an expansive variety of reasons.
Firstly the acting, it ranges from barely tolerable to god awful. Caity Lotz wore the same mildly confused, mildly moody teenage expression across her face for 90% of her scenes, it was like she was a blonde Kristen Stewart, and she did nothing to make me care about her character and what she was enduring at all. Casper Van Dien sounds like he's trying to impersonate Christian Bale's Batman with his comically low, gruff voice, which just sounded ridiculous. Kathleen Rose Perkins, who portrays another vanishing victim, had about the same amount of charisma as a teaspoon. So I'm guessing the casting directors were high or something when casting the roles here, because there was barely a flicker of any talent whatsoever from any member of the cast. Nevertheless, Haley Hudson who portrays a sort of medium, was actually pretty impressive, so at least one good decision was made in regards to the proficiency of the actors here.
The direction was a bit of a mess too, there is literally a two minute scene where all we see is a woman tossing and turning in her bed, occasionally sighing. Two minutes. The scene was so unnecessarily long, and it was marked probably the 15th time I returned to my phone, and we were only about 30 minutes in at this stage. The film also relies on jump scares too much, and I hate jump scares. One of the reasons is because I struggle to control my bladder, but also because it's such a lazy tool to provoke a response from the audience, and it signifies to me that there's not much else going on that they're expecting to frighten us, and it's a last resort mechanism.
The writing was a bit daft too. For example, when it begins to look as though someone is intruding in Annie's house, she's standing in the kitchen, a room commonly known for possessing many knives that could conveniently be used as a weapon. But does Annie pick one up? No, instead she runs around her house for a bit... However, she does eventually pick a knife up, but even so, for a grown woman, you'd expect her to be more intuitive and sensible. Additionally, the whole "the ghosts aren't attacking you, they're trying to help you" has been done before, so I wasn't surprised at this revelation. Again, nothing was going on to make me interested, the characters were dull, the story wasn't original nor was it enticing, the dialogue was okay at best, it was just pretty shocking really, and most definitely not in a good way.
I would have included the ending within the positive section of this review, but they totally ruin it at the end. But, before that, it was tense and a dreadful ambience was established and maintained throughout this part. The concept of using a woman's hair to tie and restrain her to something was something I found quite inventive, and that was certainly an interesting aspect. Anyway, what really aggravated me was in the following moments we eventually see Annie overcome her tormentor, and it looks like Annie's life returns to normal, and it was redeeming itself a bit. Then, during the last few seconds, they use another silly, and massively perplexing jump scare that juxtaposes everything that's just gone on.
Conclusion
How this film holds a 5.8 score on IMDb will be one of the biggest mysteries of my life I think, for I found this film to contain very few points of merit, and this has to be the most boring film I have watched all year. There was a spot of brilliant acting though, and the ending was pretty good until the final scene. But I'm going to have to be strict and give it, because of the silly cliches, the stupid actions made by the characters, and the horrific acting by every other member of the cast, a: