{"id":10816,"date":"2006-09-11T21:20:22","date_gmt":"2006-09-12T01:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=10816"},"modified":"2006-09-11T21:20:22","modified_gmt":"2006-09-12T01:20:22","slug":"the-covenant-2006","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2006\/09\/11\/the-covenant-2006\/","title":{"rendered":"The Covenant (2006)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JamieR-PT__Covenant1-640x36\"<\/a>It\u2019s tough being a middle class white muscular young man who has the powers of a god and has blond busty women hanging around him all the time. God, Renny Harlin knows me so well, he knows the youth so well. \u201cThe Covenant\u201d is one part \u201cThe Lost Boys,\u201d one part \u201cThe Craft,\u201d and two parts David DeCouteau with homoerotic undertones, overtones, mid-tones and all. The male cast gaze at one another with evident lust, and sexual tension, the male cast is featured nude in the lockers whipping one another while one mutters \u201cSay my name!\u201d You just have to wonder if DeCouteau had some hand in the creative process.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a horror film for the MTV generation, a horror film for the audience of \u201cLaguna Beach\u201d! \u201cThe Covenant\u201d is played like a fucking series for the CW in which we have the obligatory subtitles explaining the lore, and then a three minute opening theme song involving a montage of sequences, \u201cMore Human than Human\u201d blaring non-stop, and a damn cast listing. When a film has an opening theme resembling a television series, you can sense the obligatory spin-off reach coming from miles away. Harlin\u2019s utter inability to direct a film is blatant in \u201cThe Covenant\u201d in which he lifts scenes directly from \u201cThe Lost Boys\u201d and \u201cThe Craft\u201d and practically creates his very own remake of the aforementioned titles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Covenant\u201d represents everything that\u2019s wrong with horror today; directors fill up the screen with late twenties supermodels, who saunter around in designer clothing, mutter dialogue, and do nothing but whine about relationships and peer pressure while pretty terrible CGI fills up the screen. Meanwhile the writer is there only to find ways to show our cast without clothing and to sneak in as much CGI and product placements as possible. Harlin\u2019s desperation is evident from the beginning as he enlists a large \u201cexciting\u201d CGI sequence of the demonic Backstreet boys overlooking a party on a cliff who then proceed to jump off landing in an \u201cUnderworld\u201d pose on the ground.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s never anyone on-screen who doesn\u2019t look like they jumped off an issue of Maxim, and Harlin creates a plot that\u2019s not only incredibly contrived, but he also gives his \u201cheroes\u201d powers that serve as deus ex machinas whenever logic comes to play. Writer Cardone sets no limitations for them, nor does he explain what ability each of them holds; this gives him room to create any power he wants for the purposes of the plot. They can fly, hover, they have super strength, super speed, pre-cognitive abilities, invincibility, telepathy, invisibility, shape shifting, and one character even repairs a car with his mind to impress a girl. If these powers were kept since the 17th century, how did the ancestors have the foresight to master a power that could repair cars?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll just say it: this film is utterly fucking ridiculous. This is worse than \u201cLittle Man,\u201d only because Harlin plays the entire film with a straight face taking his audience for chumps. He expects us to swallow whatever he feeds his numbskull audience, and we\u2019re supposed to ignore plot holes and sheer stupidity. The film is played like a porno where our female characters discuss mythology and folklore while scampering around in their bra and panties, while Harlin goes for every opportunity to feature his young cast as naked as the PG-13 rating would allow. I felt like I was watching a Larry Clark film. There are girls in showers, girls in towels, guys without shirts, guys in speedo\u2019s, girls in bras and panties, and that\u2019s just the tip of the iceberg.<\/p>\n

We already saw what powerful witches can do when turning on one another in \u201cThe Craft,\u201d and we already saw evil young men with powers committing incredible evil in \u201cThe Lost Boys,\u201d so Harlin has nowhere to go with this. I hated \u201cThe Covenant\u201d more than I hate Eli Roth. To those who know me well, they\u2019re likely saying \u201cWhoa! That\u2019s a lot of hate!\u201d Yes, I despised this that much. And if you think I\u2019m overreacting I dare you not to hear the line \u201cHow about I make you my wee-otch?\u201d without wanting to incite a riot in the theaters. Tonight, I want you to take those ten dollars you have in your hand and rent \u201cThe Lost Boys,\u201d and \u201cThe Craft,\u201d and you\u2019ll thank me in the morning. \u201cThe Covenant\u201d is pure garbage\u2026 what you were expecting more from this summarization? Move on, I\u2019m too pissed to be my usual jocular self.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s tough being a middle class white muscular young man who has the powers of a god and has blond busty women hanging around him all the time. God, Renny Harlin knows me so well, he knows the youth so well. \u201cThe Covenant\u201d is one part \u201cThe Lost Boys,\u201d one part \u201cThe Craft,\u201d and two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[58,170,349,420,836,1008,1087,1195,1196],"class_list":["post-10816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-action","tag-c","tag-fantasy","tag-gothic","tag-renny-harlin","tag-supernatural","tag-thriller","tag-witchcraft","tag-witches"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10816\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}