‘The Covenant’ On Netflix Is A Magical Thirst Trap For Girls & Boys

When I think about The Covenant, I think about horniness. It’s a specific kind of horniness — a lonely kind that afflicts the young and lost. It’s wrapped up in shots of moody boys pouting in shadows and bare chests and witchcraft.The Covenant has all of these things and then some. It’s a tawdry thriller about beautiful boy witches played by young Steven Strait (The Expanse), young Sebastian Stan (I, Tonya and Bucky in the MCU), young Taylor Kitsch (Waco), young Chace Crawford (Gossip Girl) and young Toby Hemingway (I have no idea what he’s been in besides this film). The Covenant is a bad movie that’s only good for one thing: ogling beautiful young men.

The Covenant came out in 2006, but like many people, I missed it in theaters. I only learned about it through screenshots, gifs, and YouTube videos that isolated the hottest moments of the film. You know what I’m talking about. These little snippets of carefully packaged eroticism were plucked from the morass of the movie just so horny girls and boys could bask in the tension of a single perfect moment. Consider, for instance, this sequence wherein Sebastian Stan (sort of) looks longingly at Steven Strait while playing foosball:

Or, the triumph of tween girl horndog cinematography that is a wet, shirtless Steven Strait blinking his weary eyes and seeing more wet, shirtless boys huddled on top of him:

Or, this shot of Toby “I Don’t Actually Know Him” Hemingway’s butt in a locker room shot, inelegantly setting up a homoerotic fight that is ironically (or not?) sparked by a homophobic slur. 

The Covenant is a nonsensical avalanche of hyper-sexual imagery and no-so subtle sensuality. It’s not just men whose bodies are forced into the spotlight. Yes, young women get objectified, too. What The Covenant lacks in plot – it’s about a secret society of pretty, rich boys who have supernatural powers granted to them by a mystical force, and they’re all also descendants of folks from the Salem Witch Trials — it attempts to make up for in sheer tawdriness. The Covenant is less of a movie than it is a magical spank bank for thirsty boys and girls.

The Covenant is new to Netflix this month, which means you can stream it anytime you want in the comfort of your home or out in the wild on the tiny screen of your phone. And, like, look…this is a really bad movie. The story is thinner than a firefly’s gossamer wing and just about every creative choice is rank. However, it does capture the coltish handsomeness of a handful of young actors in a kind of suspended display. Strait, Stan, Kitsch, Crawford, and Hemingway are all arguably at their most boyishly beautiful here, and the film preserves them as though they were trapped in amber.

So don’t stream The Covenant if you want to watch a “good” movie. Instead, think of it is a dip into an aesthetic cesspool. It’s a cultural artifact of what girls and boys were attracted to in the mid ’00s, and it’s a visual smorgasbord of hot bods doing stupid things.

Where to Stream The Covenant