Writer/director FC Rabbath has impressed us in the past with low-budget indie horrors like The Waiting and A Brilliant Monster. The Final Pact, his latest effort, is something rather different, dancing playfully on the edges of the genre but taking a swerve into something more faith-based. In fact, the whole story is about loss of faith. Three young novice priests discover that they must take a final exam before they can graduate. Deciding to enjoy a night of celebration before finding out what the actual test is, they encounter a woman on the road at the side of a broken-down car. She tells them that she needs to get home urgently to tend to her daughter, who, as luck would have it, requires an exorcism as she’s possessed. The fresh-faced priests – Paul (Austin Freeman), Mark (Sam Sneary) and John (Charlie Prince) – take her back to her impressive, stately, white-walled home (a house that locals say wasn’t there a few days earlier). The woman quickly wanders off, and the three are left to deal with the teasing and taunting Lucy (Julia Vasi). They soon realise that they’ve been lured into their final examination, and they find themselves navigating the twists, turns, and temptations of the seven deadly sins in a house that’s clearly more than it appears. Unfortunately, John has already been questioning his own faith, and now he’s forced to question everything he’s been taught and everything he should believe in if he and his friends are to survive their final examination…
The Final Pact is, if nothing else, a startling change of pace for Rabbath. This is very much a character study, focusing especially on John, whose faltering faith is at the very core of the movie and nicely depicted by Austin Freeman. Paul is the most complex of the three would-be priests as we discover that the death of his beloved father and the disappearance of his sisters are the engines that have driven him to the edge of his faith. Julia pushes him even further as it quickly becomes apparent that she’s something rather more than a girl suffering from a possession delusion. Ultimately, The Final Pact isn’t in any real sense a horror movie but a film that asks us to invest in the dilemma of a man who feels let down by his faith and yet needs it like never before in a time of strange adversity. Compelling performances are supported by Rabbath’s assured, subtle direction that belies the film’s tiny budget and whilst The Final Pact won’t appeal to everyone, it’s an interesting, well-crafted and highly-moral fable that’s actually a refreshing change of pace, not only for Rabbath but also for indie genre filmmaking.
THE FINAL PACT is currently screening at festivals in the US and is due to receive a wider release in December.
