The Pact II (2014)

It's difficult for me to rate The Pact II. I don't think it does anything horribly and it maintains the low-key, left-from-center tilt of the first film, but it doesn't really add anything besides more back-story and a new central character. It isn't particularly frightening, with none of the stand-out scares or nightmare sequences of the original, but it isn't painful to watch and the acting is serviceable.The Pact II is a film where you can't really give much of a synopsis without ruining the plot. Who everyone is, where Annie (the lead from the original, played by Arrow's Caity Lotz) figures into the events, what the intention of the film is... It can be said that June Abbott (Camilla Luddington, the new Lara Croft, doing a pretty killer American accent), is a crime-scene cleaner who becomes involved in a series of murders linked to the original film when an FBI Agent, Ballard, begins to push in on her life, suggesting she has a connection with the investigation beyond scraping blood off the walls. Ballard, by the way, is portrayed by the always quirky Patrick Fischler, whom I most fondly remember from an enormously weird diner sequence in David Lynch's 'Mulholland Drive'. He was intense and bizarre in that, and he's been intense and bizarre pretty much ever since. He is, for me, the shining point of The Pact II, as giving him a larger role than I normally see him get proves to be the best part of the film.June also has a mother (Amy Pietz) and a cop boyfriend (Scott Michael Foster) who think she works too much, and they both figure prominently in the story. As June becomes more involved with the investigation and the case becomes more personal, the film begins to lose touch with reality, much as the original did. Bad dreams, visions of the dead, phantoms yanking characters into and out of rooms and lost hours invade the story and are probably meant to scare, but for the most part we're just wondering when Annie's going to show up and where exactly the film is heading. When Annie does arrive, pulling bits of the first film with her, it is sadly not the breath of fresh air the movie needed to liven things up. It just keeps limping towards a conclusion, occasionally waving its hands and shouting 'boo', trying to ape the original's panache.The film does conclude, kind of. The climax eschews any sense of dread or otherworldly malice in favor of stabbings, beatings and revelations, à la Scream, only (thankfully) without the self-referential winks and the nods. Apparently, someone saw the first film and saw franchise potential, because the ending comes with a promise of more. "It's starting again," a character says. More what, though? And what's starting again, exactly? Murders? Floating bodies? Bad dreams? The questions that were answered in the film pretty much sealed the deal on the original's back-story, so we're left scratching our heads as to what the hell they're talking about.Patrick Fischler is awesome, and I'm more than happy to watch Caity Lotz and Camilla Luddington duke it out with the otherworldly, but The Pact II does little more than coast on the high praise of the original, and its suggestion that it's not quite done yet feels more like a threat to entertainment than to comely young twenty-somethings.4/10 - It's below average, but it's not offensively bad

June Abbott (Camilla Luddington) is a young woman that lives with her boyfriend, the police officer Meyer (Scott Michael Foster) and works cleaning up crime scenes. June has dreadful visions at home of the deceased killer Judas and his victims and she draws her visions in her leisure time expecting to make a book. When her stepmother is cruelly murdered in a copycat crime, June believes that Judas must have returned from the afterlife. But she becomes the prime suspect of the FBI Agent Ballard (Patrick Fischler) that is investigating the cases. June contacts the former victim of Judas, Annie Barlow (Caity Lotz), expecting that she might help her. But when Annie is murdered, Meyer warns June that Agent Ballard is the copycat killer; but June is alone at home with Ballard. Will she survive?"The Pact II" is a movie with a reasonable story but a messy screenplay and bad acting of Patrick Fischler and Scott Michael Foster in the roles of two important characters. The plot is hard to be followed and I slept two consecutive nights trying to watch "The Pact II". Only yesterday night I succeeded in watching this movie, but I do not recommend it. My vote is three.Title (Brazil): "Pesadelos do Passado 2" ("Nightmares from the Past 2")

It's hard to surprise people anymore when it comes to supernatural thrillers or mystery films. The best any writer or director can do these days is institute great pacing and hope that an engaging storyline will keep spectators invested as they deliver their version of something we've all probably witnessed before. "The Pact 2" successfully does this and delivers some truly great scares in an era where everyone knows exactly when and where to expect something to happen.June Abbott (Camilla Luddington) spends the days cleaning up crime scenes and the nights using her experiences as fuel for a book she is illustrating. She begins having visions of the Judas Killer (Mark Steger) and his victims just as her police officer boyfriend (Scott Michael Foster) starts investigating a new case. It involves a psycho patterning his killings after the infamous murderer. Are her nightmares trying to warn her of something genuine she has to fear? When real life begins to spiral out of control, June contacts a former victim of the Judas Killer named Annie (Caity Lotz) to help her make sense of the events unraveling around her.Many out there are reading this with a furrowed brow while thinking, "I've never even heard of the first 'The Pact.' How did it get a sequel?" The original 2012 flick terrified crowds on the festival circuit and gained critical praise before being picked up by IFC Films for home entertainment distribution. It did well enough that producers felt it warranted a sequel. It's not often that a sequel to a movie is effective at following up its predecessor, but "The Pact 2" makes a valiant attempt at doing so. Instead of retreading the same ground the first one did, it continues the story and moves into unexplored territory. I'm highly impressed at how great this turned out without the hands of original Director / Writer Nicholas McCarthy so far in the background. The only credit he gets here is as an executive producer.Good horror movies need to build up the tension to scare people now. The days of a black cat jumping out of a closet and making you pee yourself are long gone. Now it's about the anticipation of something happening that keeps people on their toes and the edges of their seats. "The Pact 2" had me recoiling in fear throughout its entirety thanks to the navigation of fairly new directors Dallas Richard Hallam and Patrick Horvath.A lot of the eerie and unsettling atmosphere instituted in "The Pact 2" comes from its sinister musical score supplied by composer Carl Sondrol. It perfectly complements every scene in the movie and conjures feelings of dread in the viewer. Just the music alone could make your hair stand on end, even without the help of any visuals.Caity Lotz returns from "The Pact" to help link things to the first film. She acts as a sort of guide to the subject of the Judas Killer's torment this time around. You can tell Lotz doesn't think of "The Pact 2" as just another independent job to collect some quick cash. She pours herself into the character and genuinely delivers a strong performance."The Pact 2" is unrated but doesn't cross any lines that would keep it from gaining an R or even PG-13. There's some sensuality with no nudity. Frightening sequences overpower any gore seen on screen. The language is nothing we haven't heard in any other PG-13 or R rated movies.Although you have your suspicions of how "The Pact 2" is going to turn out in the end, the journey getting there is rewarding and entertaining. Much like "Insidious Chapter 2," it doesn't settle with just repeating what its predecessor did. It builds on the mythos already established and takes you further into the nightmare Director / Writer Nicholas McCarthy originally conceived.

Well, I should have stuck with my gut instinct and not actually delude myself into thinking that they might do a whole lot better with the sequel, because the first movie was a snooze-fest. "The Pact II" is much akin to the first movie, also being a snooze-fest with very little happening throughout the entire course of the movie.For a horror / mystery / thriller, then there is surprisingly little thrilling or shocking about this movie, aside from the fact that so little could happen over such a long course of time.I will say that the acting in the movie was good, and people were doing good jobs with their given roles. And it was nice to have Caity Lotz reprising the role of Annie, although that did very little to lift up the rest of the movie. Patrick Fischler did a good job with his particularly odd role as Ballard, and he was actually the most memorable in the entire movie.Story-wise, then "The Pact II" does continue on from the first movie, but again, it is nothing interesting, so don't get your hopes up.It was progressively becoming more and more of a struggle to sit through this movie, and more than once did my attention start to drift away because the movie offered very little that captures the audience.At least the first movie had a moment or two that was impressive, but "The Pact II" does not."The Pact II" scores a meager 3 out of 10 stars from me, and that is based on the acting, the camera-work and the production value. The rest of the movie is most likely to be forgotten as soon as you get out of the chair once the movie ends.