Movie Review – The Covenant (2006)

Overall Quality 2.0 / 5.0 (meh)
Gay Content 0.5 / 5.0 (gay content hinted at, but nothing explicit or clear)
Gay Positivity 1.5 / 5.0

Simply stated, “The Covenant” is “The Craft” (1996) with Y-chromosomes thrown into the mix. The movie introduces us to four guys who descend from old witch families in the Northeast. They possess something called The Power, the use of which is apparently both addictive and physically damaging, aging the user prematurely. They’re also all on the swim team. Because as everyone knows, if you throw a witch into water, they won’t drown. And if they do, they’re not a witch.

At age 18, these witch-guys “ascend,” a process which apparently enhances The Power. Or something like that. I didn’t really care enough to pay attention to the details, especially the ones that were poorly explained or scripted.

The drama arises when a fifth pretty-boy possessing The Power shows up wanting to be the ONLY pretty-boy with The Power.

This movie hails squarely from dumb-land. In a way, it reminds me of “Silent Hill” (2006). It’s a poorly done story that really gets the atmosphere right (although “Silent Hill” still easily trumps “The Covenant” in this respect). Still, I have to offer kudos to production designer Anne Pritchard’s and director of photography Pierre Gill’s creepy, atmospheric vision for the film.

“The Covenant” is a 100% testosterone-driven teenboy fantasy that fails to think outside the box at all. What’s disappointing is that it could have, easily, been so much better.

Off the top of my head, it could have:

• Been a dramatic portrayal of addiction, portrayed through a fantasy lens. Instead, the script throws in this plot point to try to make the story a little more interesting but never does anything with it. The whole idea is that these kids can’t exercise The Power without facing serious consequences. But there are no consequences to any of them for using The Power. To the contrary, the good guy is amply rewarded for it.
• Been an edgy, contemporary semi-spoof of Harry Potter, which the film explicitly references at one point. Harry Potter is an amazing literary and cinematic franchise, but it suffers from its own limitations, weaknesses, and self-created clichés. A clever scriptwriter and director could have exploited those to make a sexy, urban version. They didn’t.
• Utilize the “ascension” idea as a thematic metaphor for growing up, maturing, and acquiring wisdom and emotional sophistication.
• Been an innovative and unexpected presenter of grrl-power and gender equality; and/or an innovative and unexpected portrayal of gay power. I was dying for this movie to surprise me. Surely, I thought, the girls couldn’t be TOTAL window-dressing. I kept hoping new girl Sarah (Laura Ramsey) would turn out to be a witch too, and at the end of the movie hands all the boys’ asses to them on a plate. Or that even she might turn out to be in cahoots with the bad guy (which would have been easily plausible). Or that she might team up with good guy Caleb (Steven Strait), and together they kick the bad guy’s ass.

Unfortunately, what we actually get is:

• Predictable, formulaic storytelling
• Overdoses of melodrama
• Hormonal misogyny

This last point is particularly unfortunate. Aren’t we past this already?

No. The film pretty firmly encapsulates everything an adolescent boy could want. First, start with cool powers to beat each other up with. Add in some pretty girls who exist solely to service the boys. I mean plot-wise, of course; how else would I mean it? In fact, have these winsome girls take showers alone in the middle of the night and lay around in their underwear. And what do they do when they complain that the boys aren’t paying attention to them? Why, dance seductively for them, of course. Isn’t that what girls are FOR? And every now and then, use The Power to peek up girls’ shorts.

If you can’t read the sarcasm in the last paragraph, run, don’t walk, to watch this movie. You’ll love it.

Gay-wise, aside from the inherent homoeroticism of a “brotherhood” of young, hot guys, there’s really only a couple of minor gay points.

First, yeah, there’s the basic gay theme via metaphor… four boys who were born “special” in a way that no one would know unless you “come out” to them…. Yawn.

** MILD SPOILER WARNING – the following section explains some of the gay content and positivity, but necessarily reveals some (predictable) plot-twist information about the antagonist. **

The second point is very minor; in fact, I’m reading into the movie to get this at all. But after some internal debate, I decided to ascribe the negative gay stereotype of the gay villain to this movie. It’s definitely an arguable point, and I leave it to the viewer to decide for themselves.

But this is what I saw: a handsome, “gay vague” outsider (Chase, Sebastian Stan) who befriends the females rather than the males, even readily agreeing to go see the new Brad Pitt flick at one point. Then, after it’s revealed he’s the bad guy, he ends up in a fairly intimate pose with the good guy during a fight and kisses the good guy on the cheek. It’s not particularly sexual; there’s virtually no sparkage or zing to it. It doesn’t titillate. But it gives the viewer the intimation that the bad guy is “alternative.” It feeds off the pre-existing stereotype that gay is bad and dangerous, especially the sexually empowered homo. Remember, this is CLEARLY a movie made for hormonal teenboys. The portrayal of the bad guy is going for that visceral, negative reaction to give the viewer just one more reason to hate the bad guy.

Interestingly, there’s a brief scene where Chase is being bullied in a locker-room, but in short order, turns the situation around and ends up on top. Watching that scene, I could easily see that character as a sort of anti-hero. With a tongue-in-cheek approach to offset the gay villain stereotype, that could have been fun. Hell, Chase could have been the good guy HIMSELF if his character had been properly developed. In fact, I could easily see a Covenant of four testosterone-raging boys drunk with The Power, victimizing women and “inferior” males wherever they go, but here comes this fantastic gay guy with The Power who has spent his life perfecting his art to show those heteros what-for!

Er, um, or something like that. Ahem.

I think one might make an argument that this film is, to a certain extent, er, dare I say it? “gaysploitation.” I say this for two reasons: first, it exploits a certain level of homoeroticism and male beefcake to attract an audience which would be interested in that layer. Second, it uses the same homoeroticism to elicit a visceral, low-key homophobic reaction in the teenboy audience (as discussed above).

As a side-note, I rated the gay content as 0.5 / 5.0 but then categorized the movie “No Gay Content.” I don’t consider a movie as having “Minor Gay Content” unless the gay content is explicit, such as a clearly gay character or subplot. On the other hand, I also categorized it as horror, but it’s really too stupid and silly to be scary.