The Pact (2012)★★★★☆

Watching this movie tonight, I realized I’d never seen it before. Which wouldn’t be worth noting except that I’d watched its sequel last year because I thought I’d already seen this one. I probably should have realized this when I didn’t recognize any of the characters or context from the original in the sequel, but nope. It took watching this in its entirety to realize I’d never watched it before.

And I mostly liked it. The performances are good (I like Agnes Bruckner…and it’s always fun seeing Casper Van Dien) and the creepiness real. The artsy camerawork and the dream sequence effects are a bit disorienting but didn’t much impact my enjoyment of the movie. And the story is an interesting one, with relevant information revealed at a decent pace that keeps the film from dragging at any point.

(Spoilers ahead) But I couldn’t shake this feeling that there were missing scenes throughout, like they had to cut things for time so there were little holes poking through the plot (much like the little holes poking through the secret room in the film). For example, what was the implication behind Annie’s heterochromia (two different eye colors)? I thought the reveal was going to be that Annie’s mother was actually Jennifer Glick, but the sequel seems to dispel that idea. Maybe it’s just that the writer didn’t realize that heterochromia is a dominant trait.

Anyway, this one is pretty good and worth a watch. I’d recommend not following my lead and starting with this one instead of the second one, though.