The Circle

Although a little slow to start and relying on more than a nod to the original Blair Witch Project this independent movie really does draw you in and probably much better than the billion dollar productions from Hollywood. The story telling is well done and the acting, criticised by some reviewers, actually carries the plot really well even though you won't realise this until the end. I'm not going to add anything other than that, no spoilers, you will have to watch it.

A trite and poorly done representation of really annoying students getting what they deserved in a badly executed way.

Amateurish but better than average teen scream with relatively few of the errors that make a lot of horror just annoying.

What it excels at is rich characters I (mostly) really want to root for and I genuinely had the impression that none of them were ever totally safe. Like a lot of horror lately it feels a bit like two movies slammed together: the archaeological horror on one side and the relationship drama on the other but it was actually rather alright with the jealous ex-bf who I can so believe could be a rapist. We use the word "creep" way too liberally but even I was thinking it here.

With a cool setting and pretty girls, it's not too much of a chore to get to the third act but it does eventually get pretty cheesy and the ending is just bonkers and not in the good way.

I will say this: with all the really dumb horror out there I would rather you saw this if you were in the mood to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

University professor Karl Markusson (Edward Baker-Duly) takes 4 archaeology students on a field trip to a remote Scottish island. On arrival at the island they discover that some of the rocks have cryptic writing on them and slowly they all start to gain an understanding of these mysterious scribblings. However, as they begin to learn more about what has happened on the island the group start to fear that they may all be in danger...

The Circle has clearly been made on a limited budget featuring a group of actors who I've never heard of (the only name I was familiar with was Ross Noble). However, low-budget doesn't necessarily have to equate to low quality or low entertainment and a film like The Circle doesn't quite fail in this respect, but it doesn't quite succeed either...

A couple of immediate problems with this film have been addressed in my review summary; the acting here is pretty poor with all 5 of the actors showing very limited range and I found myself struggling to engage with any of the characters. With the exception of Melody, I found the characters to be annoying and self-centred which resulted in me not having the vested interest in what happened to any of them.

Some of its strength lie in the fact that the film has a reasonable story attached to it and some of the night time sequences are suitably tense and there are some moments of suspense during the day time as well. Director Peter Callow does an OK job at creating a sense of isolation and given the limited resources and budget it isn't too bad overall.

If you can get past some of the annoying characters and the generally wooden acting then what you're left with is a watchable film that very much does exactly what it says on the tin.

Worth watching, moderate start, gets better and better. Should be rated higher than 5