YOU never quite know what you're going to get with director Renny Harlin. While he was responsible for Sylvester Stallone's last decent movie, Cliffhanger, he also helmed stinkers like Cutthroat Island and the most recent stab at The Exorcist.
His latest - supernatural thriller THE COVENANT (12A) - sits snugly into that second group.
Populated by a gaggle of impossibly good-looking teenagers and propelled by a nauseating heavy metal soundtrack, the story follows a gang of youngsters with mystical powers that have been passed down through several generations of witches.
It's never a good thing when your new girlfriend can look up your family history in the Encyclopaedia of Paganism but worse still, their gifts are not only addictive but also prematurely age our young beauties.
And things get even worse when an evil force with a connection to their families' past shows up to steal the gang's powers.
The audience have an equally bad time of it thanks to a script so wooden you have to wonder whether English is the writer's first language.
Harlin tries his best to add some scares but all the quick cuts and not-so-special effects serve to make things confusing as well as dull.
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