The Covenant: Brotherhood Of Evil

AUGUST 15, 2007

GENRE: HERO KILLER, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

You gotta wonder the reasoning behind calling a movie The Covenant: Brotherhood Of Evil, knowing that it’s going to possibly trick people into thinking it’s a sequel to Renny Harlin’s magnum opus of the same pre colon name. Because A. no one in their right mind would want to be associated with that movie, and B. there is no Covenant in the film that I can recall. Or a Brotherhood for that matter.

No, the film is mainly just about one guy, who we’re supposed to believe is a successful PR exec, but he’s played by Ed Furlong, so he just looks like the copy room guy trying to work his way into middle management. We’re also supposed to believe he has a super hot wife (Chandra West), not to mention a huge home when he’s supposedly financially struggling. Well, whatever. It’s Canada, maybe that whole 30% currency difference worked in his favor. I can never figure it out.

The movie is the usual “Make a deal with a Devil and slowly realize he’s sort of a dick” story, and suffice to say they don’t really try to do anything out of the ordinary, at least from a storytelling point of view. However, while it’s not a good film by any stretch, they put just enough effort into it to keep it safely out of the Crap page. For example, there’s a scene in the film we see in a lot of modern horror movies, where someone calls another’s cell phone only to hear it ringing in the same room. The way this was staged was pretty impressive compared to the others, so gotta give em props for that.

But there’s also some other stuff that isn’t so much impressive as it is confusing, like when they use four shots of houses to establish one residence. Or why they would give a line like “Successful men make their own luck” to a guy who peaked with Brainscan. Or why the movie, which looks like it had a decent enough budget and was relatively well shot on HD video, would only be available in a full screen version.

And goddammit, what have I told you people about logos and production companies at the head of the film? We get the Insight logo, and then the Fries logo, followed by the Fries production title, and then the Insight production title. What the Christing fuck? Knock that shit off!

The most disturbing scene in the film occurred about 30 seconds in. A car pulls into a spot, and the camera cuts to the bottom of the car door. We see someone’s foot, and I shit you not, I KNEW it was Michael Madsen. Just from his shoe touching the ground. I think you can officially say you have seen entirely too many direct to video movies when you can instantly recognize the podiatric region of someone whose biggest theatrical role in the past 7 or 8 years was in Bloodrayne. Ah, such is life.

What say you?