The Pact 2 (2014)
In 2012, ‘The Pact’ gave us a fresh new horror film, with a new cast and a strong female lead in ‘Caity Lotz’. It was one of my favorite movies of the year, but it went very quiet very fast afterward. Since then I never thought there could be a sequel, I’m glad I was wrong.
‘The Pact 2’ starts out very slow, quiet and with hardly any dialogue at all. Well not enough to keep you interested anyway. It takes around fifty-one minutes for the movie to actually pick up and it's not until Annie ‘Caity Lotz’ character appears, that you know it's about to get better. Though she doesn’t last long, which is a shame, because her presence in the film really brought the excitement and nostalgia back from the first one, as it felt like world building and an extended universe was happening.
It would be great to see more of her, but I don’t see how they could bring her back unless they do what they did in the ‘insidious’ films with the actress ‘Lin Shaye’ who plays the main character ‘Elise Rainier’. Another surprise for me was the performance by ‘Camilia Luddington’ who’s mostly known for her work as Lara Croft in the new Tomb Raider games.
She plays the main protagonist ‘June Abbot’ and her performance in the film, was very well played and has to be one of her best live-action roles, that I have seen. I even liked that her character was an illustrator/comic book artist; it was nice to see that comic book art was represented as a career in a movie for a change, which is rare.
As for the performances throughout the movie, it was the actresses that stole the show for me. They really showcased their talents, which can’t be said about the men, their performances were very awkward and cringe-worthy in my opinion and the fact that there wasn’t any male star power in the movie to counteract the women, really felt cheap.
With all horror/thrillers, they really used twists to their advantage to control the outcome of the movie and I felt they dealt with that perfectly, one of the best twists in a horror I have seen in a long time. This fuels my love for storytelling. I admire a good twist and when they revealed the identity of the real killer, I did not see it coming, which is rare for me, when I watch films with twists and in my opinion is a sign of a good ending.
Unfortunately, the direction for the film really lets it down, apart from the action that is. The overall experience was slow, boring and unimaginative, it wasn’t until the third act where I actually concentrated on the film and was waiting to see what would happen. At this point, I was hooked.
To sum up, this film wasn’t as good as the first, but it still wants me to see more and what I cant tell from the ending, they left it open for a third installment, which I hope they do. Because I really like ‘The Pact’ Series and if they do, do a third, they should have more and better advertisement, as I had no idea the sequel existed until I saw the DVD in my local supermarket for a fiver in 2018, four years after its initial release.
I give the movie a 4 out of 10 and 7 out of 10 for acting and a 5 out of 10 for the story. For everything together though, I think the finished product is a 6.5 for a low budget sequel.
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