The Covenant

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 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.

A weakly written script and unrealistic performance of the lead roles with quite intensive screenplay.

I don't understand why this film has such a low rating on IMDb.

There are a couple of things that could have been improved on.

Firstly is the colour grading. Some of the shots (particularly the external ones) are not well balanced, and often the colour grading does not make sense to the viewer - thereby leading to some confusion about the relationship of one scene to the next or it's place in the story.

Next are some of the CGI effects. The effects are appropriate for the scene, but are not integrated well.

Apart form those couple of things, technically the film is OK and are soon forgiven as the story unfolds.

All of the actors do a good job of portraying the characters, and I felt there was a genuine connection between them in relation to the story being told.

All in all it is a film worth watching, and worth more than the low rating on IMDb.

It's actually an OK possession / exorcism movie for the most part, until the ending. In the ending, the quality drops down significantly - idiotic cumbersome fight along with amateur editing, really poor visual effects with samely poor camera work. Not to mention the ridiculous ending scene.

I don't know what happened, but until that point it was a decent indie movie with great casting, good acting and some memorable scenes (like the sex scene). Seems to be one of these many, many indie movies whose creators just can't end their movies so they come with something fast and just call it a day.