The Pact

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Year:	2012
Country of origin:	USA
Director:	Nicholas McCarthy
Genre:	Average chiller
Starring:	Caity Lotz, Casper Van Dien, Haley Hudson
Rating:	3/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2040560/
Tagline:	Some doors should never be opened.
Favourite line:	None worth mentioning

Standard chills in this low-key spook-fest.

The plot:
When ex-addict Annie’s mother dies, she is not too sure what to think. Though thinking that she should feel sadness, the fact that her mother brutalised both her and her sisters when they were younger brings contrary emotions.
Retuning to the family home, soon Annie is visited by something ghastly in the night. A presence, grabbing at her, pulling her, throwing her around the room.
Terrified, she flees to the local police station, who find her tale hard to believe, particularly considering her sister has also vanished.
Did Annie kill her sister and invent the story to cover up her crime?
Or are sinister forces at work within the house that will reveal the truth about her childhood?

It really is by the numbers stuff, though reasonably well delivered.
Caity Lotz, as Annie, convinces; Stroppy, paranoid, isolated, she cuts a lonely figure.
Local cop Creek, the only one amongst their ranks who finds her story at all interesting, is played by none other than Casper ‘where’s he been since Starship Troopers?’ Van Dien, a man so good looking, you’ll be convinced he’s the bastard son of Viggo Mortenson and Clint Eastwood, with a jaw so square you could use it to measure right angles.
But he’s called Creek.
Fuck off.
No-one’s called Creek.
Building nicely to a spooky conclusion, there is the odd surprise alone the way, but nothing that really makes you sit up and take notice.
Oh, and the spooky stuff is mainly just shadows and loud crashes, with two notable exceptions, which had me jumping out of my seat.
SPOILER WARNING.
It also does that annoying thing of having a double ending, Everything is nicely tied up, then they have to go and blow it all by chucking in something preposterous in the last shot.
Shame, really.
Decent enough, I suppose, but nothing that won’t be just as good on TV.