So as well as my slight fetish for found footage films I also really enjoy films that’s are mostly set in one room, there’s not too many of them but I tend to enjoy the ones I’ve seen. I saw this on Netflix and a quick look on the t’internet about it and I was sold.
“I enjoyed this film and it’s well worth a watch if you’re bored one afternoon or evening and need to kill and hour and half.”
Trivia – Writers/Directors, Aaron Hann and Mario Miscione, previously worked together on the award winning web series The Vault (2011). A few of the actors from the series can also be seen in Circle.
Trivia – Circle was filmed in Los Angeles in just over 10 days, shooting at the unusually fast rate of 11-13 pages a day.
This film starts with a big group of people standing in a circle around a small circle in the middle. Every so often a lightening bolt type electrical charge fires out and kills one of the people, they are then dragged off leaving the remaining people standing there. After a while they work out that they have the ability to vote for which person is struck next and eliminated from the game by death.
Watching people trying to worm their way out of being killed is fascinating
Now it’s hard to say a great deal about this without spoilers so this review will be quite short. As people get eliminated either by stepping out of their circle or being voted out we get various alliances as people team up to vote for people. In amongst all the characters are a pregnant woman and a small child, it seems that the group decide to keep those two alive in the hopes that one of them can escape. There’s some stereotypical people there loud mouth business men, slightly racist people, a man who doesn’t talk at all in hopes that no sound means he won’t be noticed and therefore not voted out. There’s a married couple in there as well hoping no one will vote out the person they love.
The Good
The setting is brilliant and watching people switch alliances, trick people and do anything they can to worm their way to survival is great to watch. As I said being set in one place is great as it means the dialogue has to be good to keep you watching. The ending which I thought I had predicted turned out quite different and we see the bigger picture for the last couple of minutes.
As the lights pass around the triangles people clench their fists on the person they think should be “eliminated” next
The Bad
Some of the characters are a bit boring but you’ll get that when there’s so many cramped into a room. The effects were a bit dodgy not terrible but just a bit off.
I enjoyed this film and it’s well worth a watch if you’re bored one afternoon or evening and need to kill and hour and half. It’s good fun and the ending seems to say there’s a bigger picture but I’m not sure if that means we’ll get a sequel as it would be pretty much more of the same.
Overall Score
Acid Horrors 