I frequently complain about films taking to long to get to the good stuff. I certainly can’t say that about Manuel H. Da Silva’s Covenant. Within the first few minutes, a woman gives birth in the woods surrounded by masked cultists. She double-crosses them and runs off with the baby. A passing cop saves her while the father faces demonic wrath.
And that is Covenant’s greatest strength. It just keeps moving. No matter what kind of a corner it paints itself into or how contrived the plot gets writers Ken Cardwell and Jeff Carr toss more at you and keeps the story going. It’s not until afterward, you realize how ridiculous it all is. Leave a demon trapped in a magic circle and then need it later? Have the demon piss on the circle and wash away part of it. Now, as far as I know, demons don’t need to use the bathroom, but what the hell, it lets the story move on.
Ian Parker (Nick Smyth, Late Night Double Feature, For the Sake of Vicious) is returning home to deal with his estranged mother’s estate. He doesn’t even get as far as the house before Sheriff Malloy (Peter Valdron) is hassling him to the point I thought he was going to go all First Blood on him. Ian is ex-special forces BTW.
Instead, he goes to the house and finds it full of occult printouts. The cops show up again, it seems his ex and his son have gone missing. But suddenly we have a zombie coming out of his woodshed, phantom marksmen shooting at everyone and a Ukraine demon hunter named Jayde (Margaryta Soldatova) leading him to safety.
It seems the Blood Moon is about to rise and the cultists that were cheated out of having Ian as a sacrifice are after his son. They have two days to prevent it.
Covenant never makes a hell of a lot of sense. Just why is there a demonic little girl wandering around? With the frequency of Blood Moons, why have they waited this long? And the final twist? I won’t spoil it but there were much easier ways to get the same result.
It’s all stupid as hell in the end, but it’s entertainingly stupid. Just what you’d expect from the winner of the Corey Feldman Award of Excellence at the Edmonton Festival Of Fear International Film Festival. Grab a beer and enjoy it.
I should warn you though, Covenant has some truly awful CGI. The kind that makes you wonder why they didn’t use practical effects instead.
Covenant will be available February 4th on Digital and Disc from High Octane Pictures.
Just watched on Tubi. Totally agree with ur rewiew. Great pace. Horrible FX. But overall a really fun 90 minutes.