Just a lie. It would be extremely strange if the British did not use their rich cultural heritage and build on its basis frightening mystical paintings, following the historical canvases of gigantic proportions, as well as legends and fairy tales about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The people of the island of Great Britain are very different from each other. The English have been trying for centuries to pacify freedom-loving Scots, while the latter are used to standing their ground and never bowing their head below restrained respect. In turn, the recalcitrant Irish for many years waged their war of liberation against the British crown, trying to demonstrate their identity. But no matter how different these three peoples were, the rudiments of their rich history go back centuries with similar roots and if you dig a little into them, you can find a lot of fascinating, mysterious and even sinister, which is sometimes used by directors, who want not only to frighten their viewers, but also to touch on topics that continue to excite the minds of the scientific community. This concerns, say, Stonehenge, standing near the sea and building hundreds of theories around its formation. Also in the UK found a lot of temples, tombs, burials and mysterious runes, which on the one hand can be used in large-scale epics with a budget of a couple of hundred million dollars, as well as modest independent horror, which sometimes may even be preferable to expensive studio projects. However, it must be admitted that few directors are able to correctly manage the history of their homeland. And in some cases, they mindlessly speculate in antiquity to earn a couple of extra points for themselves. This was exactly what Peter Callow was doing when he decided to play with us in Circle 39, but he was only disappointed by his inability to draw conclusions from history and riddles that he would never submit to.
As for the plot of the film, which, among others, Peter Callow himself had a hand in, he introduces us to the professor of archaeology Carl Marcusson (Edward Baker-Duley), who decides to diversify the university program and go with his best students to a remote Scottish island, where you can find many ancient artifacts and thereby reveal historical facts that have not yet reached academic textbooks. And the professor does not realize that there is something sinister that has already left the corpse of an innocent man. Sacredly believing that in addition to the ossified remains, stone ruins and statues on the island will be nothing, Carl brings together a team of young people in the person of Joe (Griffin Stevens), Melody (Cecilia Olafs), Claire (Eva-Marie King) and Archie (Colin Bernickle), goes on a slow-moving ship and goes on a journey promising unpredictable nightmares. Landing on the picturesque locations, the teacher and his students first of all begin to explore the area and prepare for the execution of their direct tasks, but after a while they begin to realize that there is someone else on the island. He is clearly sinister and will not miss an opportunity to tear a person apart. It is likely that he was told about those runes that can be found in the ground artifacts, but who cares who it is and why no one yet knows about him. The main thing is to survive now, but as you would expect, young people and their professor do not know how to properly defend themselves, which means they will definitely test their own instinct for self-preservation, which at the key moment likes to fail. Although, such an order of events is no longer able to surprise anyone, because the other from a budget, secondary and painfully predictable horror is not to be expected, and all claims to mystery crumble in the course of the narrative itself.
Initially, the film managed to create at least some semblance of intrigue, because the creators tried to reveal the essence of archaeological research, to show what unique secrets are located on the island and why the professor and students wanted to know what awaits them during a promising hike. The slow development of the plot made us believe that the further action will be thorough, multifaceted, based on ancient legends of Great Britain, but over time it became clear that this should not be counted on, and all the tricks of the director were created solely to delay the timing and no more. All the finds, wrangling and search for the title characters have led only to a monster who does not scare and begins to do his bloody deeds with some kind of detached craft mine. The monster does not cause any emotions, it is necessary only for the heroes to commit stupidities, and the audience no longer ask questions about the research of the professor, which has not received proper semantic development. But the introduction ' Circle' promised to link all the components of horror together and how to play the card of mystical folklore. And it is a pity that the director himself, and he is also a screenwriter, believed quite differently, wrapping the narrative in some kind of similarity ' The Blair Witches' with a small number of active actions and frightened faces of actors who were not given to properly demonstrate their strong dramatic sides.
Of course, ' Circle' goes to the artistic bottom under the weight of numerous directorial blunders, and therefore at least somehow to correct the situation could only landscapes, which could not spend money from the production budget, camera work and soundtrack. And with similar components in 'Circle', surprisingly, not all that bad. Brave nature itself is worthy of admiration, although it seems that there is nothing unique in it, and the technical aspects, except for the pathologically intrepid monster, are mainly pleasing. If Peter Callow had not been too lazy to properly work out the script, would have spent enough time in the library and realized that the audience needed to give a little more than some of the superficial summaries borrowed from ancient legends, then from ' Circle' it could well have turned out at least a medium genre level movie, but he apparently wanted to finish the work as soon as possible and switch to other projects. Himself ' Circle' he probably got tired somewhere during the shooting process, from which the narrative looks uneven, clumped, sometimes very slow and tortured. But everything started quite well, even with a backlog of depth and meaning.
In the end, I want to say that ' Circle' it is worth bypassing and, if possible, not looking inside. Of course, beautiful views of nature will always find their audience, but in the case of this film, it is better to watch some documentary sketch about the British Isles complete with a voiceover telling about local legends and legends, rather than spend your precious free time watching this unintelligible opus.
2 out of 10