The Covenant (PG-13)
Bland horror movie is more silly than scary.
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- Studio: Sony Pictures, Sony Pictures
- Directed By: Renny Harlin
- Cast: Steven Strait, Laura Ramsey
- Running Time: 97 minutes
- Release Date: 09/08/2006
- Video/DVD Release Date: 01/02/2007
- Genre: Horror
- MPAA Rating: PG-13
- MPAA Explanation: intense sequences of violence and action, some disturbing images, sexual content, partial nudity and language.
Parents need to know
Families can talk about the seductive nature of "power," whether metaphorical or literalized here. How does the movie suggest that power might be used in a positive way, as well as to prove oneself superior or to control others? How does the movie compare power to an addictive substance? You can discuss the Salem Witch Trials, jumping to conclusions, or judging people who seem different.
Message
Social Behavior:
Witch-boys are arrogant and selfish, save for one, who teaches others to be careful with their gifts (though he has to beat one apparently to death in order to impose this lesson).
Consumerism:
Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco:
Caleb's mother smokes cigarettes; prep school students drink beer and liquor at local bar; repeated discussion of the "power" as a drug, to which users become addicted.
Violence
Fights between witch-boys are brutal (slamming through walls, ceilings, and stacks of bottles, tossing farm tools, throwing fireballs), but unbelievable (cheesy effects); estate caretaker aims gun at intruders; girl assaulted by spiders; girl suffers hives and unconsciousness under a spell; barn burns during big showdown scene, with bodies smashing into each other and various walls.
Sex
Girl in a shower scared by foggy shape (her breasts remain unseen); in boys' locker room, shots of naked butts in the shower; passionate kissing in car by primary couple.
Language
Several uses of "s--t," as well as "son of a bitch," "hell," "d--khead."
Common Sense says
What's the story?
Reviewed by Cynthia Fuchs
The four coolest and most intimidating boys at Spenser Academy in Ipswich, Massachusetts share a secret: As legend has it, their ancestors were witches, accused and abused at the Salem trials, and the boys have powers. Caleb (Steven Strait) realizes that using their powers too much is dangerous: Using them too much in fact can deplete them, which happened to Caleb's 44-year-old father. So he starts to warn his friends -- Pogue (Taylor Kitsch), Reid (Toby Hemingway), and Tyler (Chace Crawford) -- to cut back on the use of their powers. A new student, Chase (Sebastian Stan), insinuates himself into the boys' group. He seems naïve and in need of protection, which Caleb offers, but it turns out Chase is the descendent of yet another witchy family, and means to suck the power out of all the other boys.
Is it any good?
More nonsensical than scary, THE COVENANT conjures a cautionary tale for prep school pretties. Chase reframes the good-bad dynamic in Ipswich: No longer is the bossy daredevil Pogue the reigning terror in town. Now Chase poses a real menace, not only to Caleb, but to all righteous witchy types, for he'll soon need to suck up their powers as well. Besides, Chase starts tormenting Caleb's crush, Sarah (Laura Ramsey), with spells and spiders, so that Caleb just has to take a stand. Or rather, he has to engage in a knockdown, drag-out hellfires-a-blazing battle at the old estate, where he and Chase throw pitchforks and plows at one another while thunder crashes.
It's lots of noise for nothing. Though director Renny Harlin knows something about putting pretty kids in danger (he made the underappreciated Nightmare on Elm Street: Dream Warriors way back in 1988), here the effects look cheesy and the characters flummoxed by an incoherent script that mostly devises ways for them to throw one another against glass objects -- windows, mirrors, crates of bottles. And when that fails, they go back to leaping off cliffs.
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