The Circle

I really did expect something a little dull, but watchable, instead it was an hour and a half of atmospheric, interesting, and pretty deep horror drama.

Quite clearly the makers didn't have the biggest budget, but they made fine use of what they had, at times it looks very impressive, with some decent special effects.

Not particularly scary, but there are a few jumps along the way, this is more about the atmosphere.

Hard to fault, 8/10.

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.

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.

Despite the small budget of the film (which is noticeable), done well! The acting is good and does not cause rejection.