Circle

'Circle.' It's a pretty tight little film, basically filmed only in the one location for an hour and a half – the location being a completely pitch black room with fifty red spots on the floor. In each, stands a random stranger and every couple of minutes one of which gets zapped by – er – something and brutally killed before their body is dragged off into the gloom. Confused? How do you think the fifty people feel?! And that's that – fifty people turns to forty. Forty turns to thirty and so on. It's a tough sell and it's probably never going to be a mainstream hit (especially as about the most well-known face is Dexter's wife from the TV series of the same name). Anyway, I think it deserves a cult following as I'm sure it will find an audience out there somewhere.

Its simple premise and delivery kind of reminded me of other (rather fun films) such as The Human race and Cube. Yes, it's hardly action-packed. The fifty people can't even move off their little red spot on the floor – if they do, that nasty zapper comes back for them again and that's that for them. What you have is a kind of morality tale about what people would do in this situation. Would they vote to kill people they don't know just to save themselves, or would they try and save everyone? It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea. I can see plenty of people finding it boring, or being annoyed at the ending (I won't say why – you'll have to check out the internet message boards!), but if you're in the mood for something a little different and without any major car chases or Marvel superheroes destroying entire cities then give this one a go. I found it on Netflix and was glad I did – definitely worth seeing if you're in the mood for something dark, talky and that will make you question what you'd do in this most of weird and extreme of situations.

A film composed of nothing but dialogue, restricted point of view story-telling and a literal ticking clock of building suspense, Circle toys with the deep-seated morality play of the human condition, though falls just short of properly exploring it. It would have benefited from fully embracing its ambiguity in place of a definite answer to the scenario, as the attempt to deliver a shocking twist ending instead only succeeds in robbing the audience of the chance to explore and discuss their varying interpretations.

Some seemingly random people appear in a circular room, every now and then one of them is executed. They quickly realise there is a way to 'vote off' your fellow circle dwellers in a very terminal way.

It is not long before prejudices and biases start to arise. Someone notices more black people are getting zapped than white people. Coincidence? Some of these biases are played out very professionally with flair and drama, others are handled a bit clumsily leading to some very cringey dialogue.

This film lives and dies by how much you are prepared to invest into it.

If you think about the scenario logically, then a lot of the choices people make seem rash and rather stupid.

But if you can put yourself in the characters shoes, and imagine that you - staring wide eyed down the barrel of a gun - are about to be killed over some scum bag rapist, in reality wouldn't you want that extra two minutes of life over them - just on principle?

This is where the film needs to draw you in. The acting, lighting, effects and sound are all good enough. However, some of the characters aren't, forcing some of the actors into a corner they have to ham their way out off. Then the spell starts to crack.

If you can remove all distractions and try to engage your emotions and blot out the signals coming from the rational parts of your brain then this is very good for Netflix fodder.

I was fully prepared to have one of those stupid no answer endings. I was pleased to get a bit more than I expected.

Fantastic concept that is beautifully executed. All the decisions and rationale behind them feel disturbingly real. I found myself yelling at the characters on many occasions.

My one gripe would be that it was hard for me to imagine how certain characters would survive as long as they did given their actions.

That said the turmoil did cause me to become that much more involved in the story.

This film falls in line perfectly with others that similarly take a unique concept and flesh them out into intriguing narratives. If you like Cube, The Game, The Box, or even Adjustment Bureau (not nearly as sappy so don't worry) you will love this movie.

Side note if you watched this movie and liked it you should also check out the ones I mentioned above.

Eerie? Yes. Smart? Kind of, yes. Interesting? Also, yes. Worth an oscar? No, definitely no. Worth your time? Maybe, if you are into weird movies like "the cube". 50 people in a circle, don't know how they got there and every 2 minutes someone gets zapped and dies. Talking seems to be the only way to get through this... So this sounds interesting and it actually is. It will keep your eyes and ears awake and luckily its not a long film, so it never becomes dull. If you are having a movie night and plan to watch 3 movies, then watch this one in the middle. 6/10