The Covenant

If you’re in the mood for something a little off the beaten path as far as horror and supernatural goes, you might want to give a decade old movie The Covenant a go. In almost every film we see witches being portrait as women, but this one dared to go the other way and with a good reason.

Witch Trials and Men

Directed by Renny Harlin, The Covenant features the talents of four talented young men, of which one of them might be more familiar as he played Bucky Barnes in Captain America – The Winter Solider from Marvel Comics.

The storyline involves four teenage friends Caleb Danvers (played by Steven Strait), Pogue Parry (played by Taylor Kitsch), Tyler Simms (played by Chace Crawford), and Reid Garwin (played by Toby Hemingway). All four of them are the descendants of four out of the five founding families living in a small New England town of Ipswich.

According to the story the town of Ipswich suffered from the witch trials just like much of New England and the boys’ families managed to survive with their powers intact therefore leaving their extraordinary witch power heritage intact as it build over time until they mature to the age of eighteen.

Unlike traditional movies only the males of the family inherit the powers adding to the four main characters each have their own personal drama that lends to character development throughout the story.

Behind The Scenes

The personality of the main characters ebb and flow against each other suggesting that the actors had descent dynamic on and off camera and despite the main actors growing up to have their own distinctive careers, only Sebastian Stan has become an A list actor.

That isn’t to say that their acting skills weren’t good in the film or that The Covenant was poorly written, it just had some tough competition that year. After all, In 2006 we saw the arrival of Pirates of the Caribbean – The Curse Of The Black Pearl, Night at the Museum, and The Da Vinci Code. All mega box office hits.

The movie itself had a moderate success when it hit the box office, but the critics weren’t as friendly. It bombed as far as rottentomatoes.com goes, earning only a mediocre 4 percent, and the movie itself received a dismal of 19 out of 100 on Metacritic.com.

However 89 percent of Google users liked the story. I personally didn’t watch The Covenant in the theaters since I try to avoid going out for a movie if I can. But I do admit that I liked it very much and after watching it on Amazon.com, I bought a copy of the movie.

Most of the motion picture was filmed at night and dark places and as I would guess would be to enforce the supernatural feel letting us know that monsters cannot come out in daylight.

Choosing the fall season was well thought as it made the scenery more pleasing and beautiful. A fun fact is that Spenser Academy, the prep school in the movie, is the Canadian University of Sherbrooke in the province of Quebec and not the United States.

The movie can appear quite gloomy to some watchers due to the unfortunate constant bad weather that took over the Eastern province while filming, despite it sounding like bad luck to some, was in fact helpful to the creepiness of the entire paranormal side of the movie.

Good vs. Evil

Now if you get beyond the youngster dialog leading to a teen boy soap opera, there is a good story that takes place. I am drawn to movies that highlight the infinite battle between good and evil and this movie surely highlighted the timeless theme.

Not only do the characters in the film have to face a dangerous foe, but they also have to face their own reality. While their enemy might seem just like them, it isn’t verbalized that they might become just like him as well and it is left to the viewer to find out.

The thin line between good and evil is very pronounced under the half-nude swim team scenes and traditional end of the summer beach party. The teen boys deal with their own demons together, despite their disagreements and differences.

However, as a warning I should mention that spiders are present in the movie and since arachnophobia is a common fear, maybe it isn’t a good idea if you share the phobia to watch the movie.

Overall, I enjoyed the story and will definitely watch it again and it is not only is because I bought it. While I do not find it worthy of an outstanding rating on originality, I did find it interesting to see males carrying the torch as witches for once. It made the movie different from many others adding the young firm delectable bodies of men half-naked and a somewhat intriguing storyline and you have a 6/10 from me!