The Circle

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.

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.

I don't care what the other blistering sad people say, but I thought it to be gripping and scary with a good unexpected ending. 9/10.

I honestly liked The Circle. It is a movie that came with a good script, better than your average actors, and a well crafted execution.

The story is there, with more layers than one, the characters are quite ok developed, not the greatest visual effects but they blended them nicely with the dark, and everyone involved in the making of this little horror seemed to know what they were doing. I really do hope others will learn from such small gems, because you can keep the viewer interested as long as you got a good story behind you and you know how to tell it right.

It will be one of those movies that I have to recommend, one that made the absolute best of its small budget, and surely something that I will use as a mark when comparing to other future low budget/ in the woods horrors.

Cheers!

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