Summary:
A group of archaeology students travel to a remote Scottish island where they stumble upon a mysterious site, and soon, unusual phenomenon begin.
My Thoughts:
“The Circle” (2017) is not to be confused with “The Circle” (2017), starring Tom Hanks and Emma Watson. I haven’t seen that film, but I sort of wish I was in the room with the producers of this film when they decided it would be a good idea to use the same title as a blockbuster coming out the same year as their low budget horror flick… Then again, maybe they thought more people would actually watch their film if they confused it with the Tom Hanks and Emma Watson “Circle”.
The story revolves around an archeology professor named Karl Markusson (Edward Baker-Duly) and his students Melody (Sesselia Olafs), Joe (Griffin Stevens), Claire (Eva-Marie Kung), Archie (Colin Burnicle), and Paul (Ross Noble) as they travel to a remote Scottish island to visit a dig site. When the group arrives at the island, however, Karl finds that he doesn’t recognize many of the sites he thought they would find, and he begins to worry they might have been dropped off at a wrong . The group discovers a ring of stone circles that have writing on them from many cultures throughout the ages, and, after night falls, mysterious things begin to happen.
I watched this film on a whim after finding it on Amazon Prime. It was pretty much unseen on IMDb (as I’m writing this there are currently less than 200 reviews), but the reviews I did see were pretty polarizing: people seemed to love it or hate it, and those kinds of films- the ones that divide audiences- are often where I find the movies that I like the most. (I love really weird movies, and many people have a problem with the really weird stuff; so, naturally, they get polarizing reviews. If you want to find the best, most obscure weird movies, sometimes you have to take a chance on independent films that you’ve never heard of.) I took a chance on this film, and it sort of paid off in some regards, but in others it failed pretty spectacularly.
I think the coolest part of this film is the general concept. The idea of stumbling upon an archeological site with writings from hundreds of different cultures from thousands of years is pretty cool; it’s dark and weird and mysterious, and it casts an unsettled atmosphere over the whole of the film. Furthermore, a lot of thought was put into how the island and what they found there. I like the way that the sites were laid out, and how they provided different hints as to how it was the group was to escape from this place in the end (though, honestly, it becomes pretty obvious how they will escape after a certain bit of info is revealed). It was sort of like watching stupid people try to solve a puzzle box, where the solution is incredibly obvious; somewhat frustrating, yet somewhat entertaining.
But, alas, the good concept was about the extent of the goodness that this film has to offer. The acting from almost everyone is pretty schmaltzy, and some of the characters were downright annoying (I wanted Ross Noble’s character to die about five minutes into the film). The dialogue honestly isn’t that great; a lot of it feels stilted and expositional. Worst of all are the effects.
I feel like I could’ve (somewhat) overlooked the somewhat schmaltzy acting, the poor dialogue, and the really annoying characters if it weren’t for the absolutely abysmal special effects. Now, I know, when you’re working with a low budget you inherently have some restrictions that you have to work around: it’s the skilled filmmakers that stand out during these restrictive times, and the less imaginative ones that look at that difficult restriction and say: “Let’s just use CGI, who gives a damn if it looks bad?” There are two creatures that look okay when they are completely shrouded in shadow, but when they enter the light they look terrible. There’s one woman that uses a lamp that, for some inexplicable reason, is brightened with what looks to be an Adobe After Effects plug-in. The same woman carries with her a cloud of smoke that looks as if I made it in my first year of film school. The effects wholly undercut any sort of tension whenever these people are onscreen.
Verdict:
This film has a few really cool concepts and interesting world building, but overall, the execution is lacking (particularly in the special effects department). I’m not upset I watched this film, because it certainly held my throughout (helped along by a few truly creepy scenes- watch out for the random hiker if you do watch this movie!), but I can’t say I’d recommend it, nor would I go out of my way to watch it again.
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