The Covenant

I did not entirely dislike this movie. And that is not a promising way to start a review.

The story is kind of beaten to death - do not expect significant twists and turns along the ride for like 99% of the movie. What i look at very much in horror movies is "how the protagonists communicate with each other". How do they tell each other about the things they have seen, heard, experienced. For me - a horror movie succeeds or fails with the communication. When the protagonists act idiotic and simply leave out the crucial facts - while chatting away in vague terms only - the best story and visuals cannot save it.

In that movie - the communication between the protagonists was ... alright. It certainly was not perfect (far from it) - but then again - the movie does not go into sufficient detail about the relationship of them. However - considering they are siblings - i did expect more empathy - even for siblings that became estranged. All in all though ... it is still "ok".

Another factor about the communication between them and that it did not feel quite good - was the acting. At times i felt thrown back to an 80s or 70s horror flick with its immense overacting. In short - i really, REALLY did not like the acting at all. It was not high school level bad - but it was very low budget bad.

The practical effects were good enough - but the movie did not demand much anyway. The CGI effects or other visual trickery was pretty bad.

Why was it still a 4/10 for me then?

It was consequential and did not fall for a typical resolution. I value this very highly when it comes to movies that usually follow very strict parameters.

I do not want to be too long, therefore I just want help who s choosing the movie with some no-spoiler key points: 1) It's kind of low budget movie, with some implantation from many other horror movies, not very well assembled 2) this cause a miss of suspense and adrenaline, in scenes where Director could do better 3) actors are not that bad, however their characters don't have the chance to be deepened along the story. 4) I did appreciate Clint James I guess He did as much as he could. 5) The worst thing is that this movie is missing the climax, mandatory for a kind of movies like this ones, letting the watcher with an unpleasant feeling of the overall story. Generally I wouldn't suggest this movie to anyone, but I definitively cannot say it has been the worst low budget movie I have seen. But is it low budget? I hope it is, but very far from good works like IT Follows.

It deserves more than the 3.7 rating it has at present. OK, we're not talking Exorcist or Exorcist III here but it's much better than the usual stuff that's made in this genre.

Sarah Doyle loses her daughter to leukemia, although we find later there's a little more to it than that. Her husband after the funeral shoots himself in front of Sarah. Shattered by these events Sarah allows her brother to take her back to the house in which they lived as children. There he hopes to help his sister recuperate.

The best laid plans of mice and men, etc. Things don't quite turn out as planned. There is something in the house, an ancient and malevolent presence that seems to have been waiting for Sarah. She starts hearing voices, seeing her dead daughter and then begins to self-mutilate. Her concerned brother asks a local priest to talk to her but as he begins to counsel her a face appears behind her and the priest hurries from the house in terror. Shortly after he slices off his own tongue in front of his housekeeper. Then things begin to get really bad.

The rest of the movie doesn't disappoint the expectations that have been built up. I'm very hard to please with horror movies but this one I did find enjoyable.

I personally enjoyed the story. The acting and vfx were quite good (except for the demon one, I'm sorry...). Probably bit more development of the characters would have neen nice.

Besides that, I would say the color doesn't help. It was not balanced and you could notice the difference between scenes, which makes the audience lose track. And as a musician myself, definitely I have to say there was extreeeeemely low work on it. Lot of noise between dialogues and zero music!!! Seriously... this movie needed much more work. Sound effects were weak, and, as I said, zero zero music. That reaaaally made me sad.

What we have here, is a basic Exorcist type horror. It looks bad, is acted bad and the script is bad. There is no real horror or suspense, so one could say the movie fails at everything but it's not actually catastrophically bad.