Circle

When a serial killer escapes from prison and returns to his childhood home, an FBI team races to stop him from continuing his rampage on the grad students who have moved into the home to conduct research on the very psychopath.

A surprisingly decent and far more watchable slasher effort than expected, as this one manages to contain some pretty interesting and intriguing stuff than expected. This is mostly due to the rather fun times contained within the opening set-up, which not only manages to get them there in a pretty timely manner but also sets up their purpose nicely as to their investigation and discoveries around the house with typical slasher film expectations thrown in before it gets to the stalking and abducting, which are pretty creepy at times and definitely worthwhile. The only flaw to this, which really has a lot of good stuff about it as well, is that this stuff is running congruently with the team investigating the escape and his criminal past, which includes them butting heads with each other, trying to use their area of expertise to get ahead over the other and the eventual discovery that working together allows them to solve the case. It's all pretty cliché and definitely quite dull, but is odd since the slow unraveling of the clues and the puzzle of it all is pretty interesting and keeps the film going along nicely, but had this dropped the tons of clichés and put the crime-scene-investigation antics to a minimum this could've been much more enjoyable.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Nudity, an obscured sex scene and drug use.

The plot: A crazy serial killer believes that he can harness the power of his victim's souls through ritual murder.

Circle had a premise that, in capable hands, could rise to become an above-average genre movie, perhaps memorable for its outlandish ideas or graphic violence. In the hands of this inept crew, however, it turns into a horrible, boring, tedious, and stupid movie. I can not stress how boring and uneventful this movie is. Insipid dialogue, delivered without conviction or interest, takes up roughly half the runtime, while ridiculous filler takes up the remaining half. It's mind-numbingly boring. In the last few minutes, there's finally some action, but it happens so late in the movie, you'll probably be asleep. And then the movie abruptly ends. Now, I'm not saying that I wanted the movie to go on any longer, but the ending seems to serve as nothing but an open-ended cop-out, leaving open the possibility of a sequel. I can only hope that nobody is stupid enough to finance a sequel to this crap.

There's a bit of sex, violence, and nudity, but it's so inept that you'd be better off looking for fan-made films on YouTube. I can't see any reason at all to watch this.

Basically, this is about a glorified psychopath that has escaped. They keep talking about how smart he is, how his light eyes signify "power," and blah blah blah, but they fail to produce any evidence of his genius and power. He's basically just a guy who started killing small animals and graduated to killing people - your basic serial killer. To be honest, I was surfing the web the entire time I was watching this, which actually made it slightly more enjoyable. I think if I wasn't surfing the web, it would have been brutally slow, predictable, and painful to watch. You can pretty much see all of the twists and turns (if you can call them that) coming, and even the dialog is predictable.

Supposedly, the killer is into some kind of Greek numerology, which if done correctly, it's supposed to give him that much more power. They go into it briefly, but it's something that a high school student's imagination can come up with and then they don't really go too far in depth on it. So, it's a half hearted effort to mystify the killer and provide some insight into why he does what he does. Overall, since it was slightly entertaining while surfing the web I'd put this between a 3 and a 4, but I decided to be generous and give it a 4.

Uninteresting tale of a nutjob who escapes a psycho ward after 9 years, thanks perhaps in part to the leniency and thrall of the doctor there who thinks he's a "genius". However, not before he kills 5 other patients, arranging them in a semi-circle seated and tied to chairs. Seems that the crazo believes that if he arranges his victims in a half circle and that their numbers somehow correspond to 432 (something to do with Pythagoras and ancient Greek ideas, I dunno) the accumulated energy of their deaths will allow him to see their souls or some such sh!t.

In the mean time some psychology students are sent out to the whackjob's former home for some kind of field study trip wherein they're supposed to get into the mind of the psycho by studying his habitat (I think you know where this is going). They don't know that the loony they're studying --or are supposed to be-- is out and about and headed home while they're goofing off and vacationing at his house.

After the murders and escape, the cop who caught the fruitloop 9 years ago is back on the job but this time has to contend with a female FBI agent who has been authorized to head the case. So there's a little friction there but nothing serious; they eventually start getting along as they try desperately to find out where the basketcase went.

I found the movie boring basically because nothing creative, surprising, or interesting happens. After the 5 murders at the outset (and we only see one since the other 4 were already dead where the movie begins), nothing else of note happens for almost an hour, less 3 or 4 minutes. Up until then the 3 male and female students never say or do anything interesting. Studying the nut site for clues to his personality, or an education in general, is the last thing that one guy and one girl have on their minds. They would rather make out --which I'm not against if it's erotically interesting-- but, alas! it was not. Just some stupid, dull, clumsy fumbling in a van where the girl maniacally implores the guy to say he loves her. At this point, I'm wondering if she too didn't escape some mental institution. While that's going on there is another couple who spend time talking about their relationship and the camera alternates between the 2 scenes. That leaves another guy and girl but they're not doing anything together, or anything interesting either. The guy here has a little camera which he occasionally uses to shoot scenes more boring than the movie he's in. Avoid. Love, Boloxxxi.

This film is not even worth a single star, despite the plot sounding slightly promising.

To put it frankly, nothing happens. The film is made up of 95% utter garbage that is in no way linked to the plot, 1% action(God awful action at that) and 4% credits. It is hard to understand how the creators of this pathetic excuse for entertainment managed to even get any action out of the atrocious plot line at all.

Unfortunately, this film can't even classify itself as a "so bad it's good horror film". Anyone who manages to actually endure this film for an hour and a half would most definitely hold up under extreme torture techniques.

Avoid at all costs.