My Review of The Covenant (2006)

Written by J. S. Cardone
Directed by Renny Harlin

Chase Collins: "You ready to say "uncle"?"
Caleb Danvers: "I'm ready for you to go to hell."

Back in 1996 we got one of the best witch related movies with The Craft (which is now getting the reboot treatment) and a decade later, someone decided that a male version would be a good idea, so we got The Covenant and while it's not quite the gem that the female led movie from a decade earlier, it certainly has a few things in it's corner.

First of all, you've got the pretty boy leads aka the Sons of Ipswich - Caleb Danvers (Steven Strait), the leader of the group as well as Pogue Harry (Taylor Kitsch), Reid Garwin (Toby Hemingway) and Tyler Simms (Chace Crawford) all of whom are becoming close to reaching their full potential with their powers, especially Caleb whose ascension is rather a big plot point of this movie while bad boy warlock Chase Collins (Sebatian Stan) is out to cause as much trouble as he can.

I'm not gonna lie - the acting in this movie won't blow you away and there's a horrible overuse of slow motion which doesn't entirely work during one important sequence, not to mention the central romance between Caleb and new girl Sarah (Laura Ramsey) is pretty poor at best with no real chemistry between Strait and Ramsay and while the other lads outside of Chase are not really developed, there's still a lot that does work in the movie's favour.

The rich history with the warlocks and the consequences of abusing as seen by how quickly Caleb's own father aged in the movie are successfully handled along with Chase's own backstory and his motive for wanting to take Caleb's power. Even their final battle in the barn amid the naff use of slow mo actually works well enough and it's leaden with some hilariously cringe worthy dialogue.

There's also the surprising level of homoeroticism in this movie as well. Chase could've easily killed Caleb but chose to play the long game to get his powers and there was definitely some flirty banter during their antagonistic exchanges, more from Chase's end than Caleb's though. As for Chase, his eventual fate is left a little ambiguous, which I did like.

Sebastian Stan who would later go on to be a prominent player in the MCU certainly seemed to have a lot of fun playing the camp baddie and Steven Strait does make for a nice if not totally charismatic protagonist. It's almost a shame this movie didn't do well enough to have generated a sequel as it would've been fun to have seen Caleb and Chase go a second round.

- Jessica Lucas who played Tabitha Galavan on Gotham appeared here as one of the other lads girlfriend, Kate. Her character isn't given much to work with.
- Some of these actors have worked with each other in other projects after this movie. It's also no surprise that all the male cast were models in their past. The movie certainly put that to use as well.
- Nice enough use of Darklings and CGI spiders in the movie.
- Chronology: 2006 Ipswich, Massachusetts.

It's by no means a classic movie, and nor is it quite the disaster piece either. The Covenant might not be quite as iconic as The Craft but it's a diverting way to spend some time with a nice range of guy candy and a decent backstory/rivalry with the main characters. Don't expect anything too scary or deep and you'll have a blast with this one.

Rating: 7 out of 10