The Death Pledge

Director - Jeff Carroll 

Starring - Rose Cadeau (Looking in the Mirror, Jane Doe), Patrick Charlemagne, and Rebecca Ciara (Empire, Cake: The Series)

Release Date - 2019

Genre - Horror

Tagline - "These roots are evil"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     Indie horror is a very mixed bag.  You never know exactly what you are going to get when you toss a movie into your player.  Is it the movie the director envisioned making or did budget and lack of know how take away from their dream?  That's often the first thought that rushes through my mind when I get in no-budget indie flicks for review.  I hate giving negative reviews for indie flicks because I know a lot of hard work, valuable time, and money from the filmmaker's own pocket went into a production.  I respect their hard work but sometimes a movie just doesn't go the distance.  A few weeks ago MVD hooked me up with several released from Wild Eye for review.  After watching the phenomenal Vicious I decided to toss in the 2019 slasher The Death Pledge.  I want to thank MVD and Wild Eye for sending this one over.

     The film follows sorority and fraternity pledges as they visit a newly discovered African burial ground that was unearthed after a hurricane.  What starts out as a Greek pledging activity and African heritage and history when an African serial killer is unleashed to pick them off one by one.

     I've seen a lot of messy indie horror flicks over the years but this may be one of the worst.  I can see what the movie was going for and I really respect it but something had to happen for the movie to be the way it is.  It's so inconsistent and the editing and run time is all wrong.  It almost feels as if the film was abandoned and then finished at a later time with the intro and beginning section being added to extend the run time.  Regardless, the film was a tough one to finish.  The acting in this one is amateurish.  The cast really showed some inexperience but they did try to their best.  The characters are pretty generic and easily forgettable which takes a lot away from the scenes.  The story for this one can be split up into two parts.  The first 20 or so minutes of the film which features the backstory to the cemetery and setting the scene for the college students before moving to them actually being there.  This first portion is clearly shot with high quality video.  However, once we move to the burial ground we get low quality video with a dark blue hue over everything.  This portion of the film consists of long drawn out scenes with poorly written and delivered dialogue that has very little to do with the story.  You could easily trim 70% of the film and still get the basic plot outline.  Finally, the film has several deaths and they are extremely dull.  The scenes are too dark to really see them and their lack of practical effects makes them forgettable.  We also get some really bad visual effects that had me laughing every time they would appear.  Overall, The Death Pledge feels like an unfinished project that was later picked up and completed.  It's a rough one to watch and one I seriously struggled with.  I would love to know some behind the scenes info on this one to see what was going on because I seriously doubt this is what the direct had in mind when he started the film.