Circle of Eight

 

TITLE: Circle of Eight
RELEASE DATE: 2009
SCORE: 1.5 out of 4


First and foremost there is the fact that the studio that made this is named "Mt Dew Green Label Studios" and that Paramount is most likely just distributing this film. Not knowing what to expect from this film at all, I begin worrying I am about to watch an 83 minute Mountain Dew commercial repackaged for my consumption as "horror." How horrifying! Well, as the Dew is extreme, so is this movie - which remains unrated (as far as I can tell).

The first few minutes of it happen to be a sort of music video -- and a terrible one! Jessica, while adequately performed by Austin Highsmith, is still a weak and hackneyed Mary Sue character in which to project all our fears and anxieties on to, with little or any actual personality of her own. She soon meets her neighbors when she moves into a new apartment on New Year's Eve. Oh, and the apartment complex has a "file room" no one is allowed to go in to. And, you guessed it, all the neighbors are crazy (and there's eight of them)! Or is Jessica the crazy one? Who knows? Who cares...

No one knows anything, everyone is an unreliable narrator/crazy person and no one is very likable, so the emotional commitment I had for the characters was less than zero, I definitely rooted for all of them to die. The dialogue is atrocious and delivered with all the ability of high school drama team flunk-outs. I expect this out of a low-budget horror film but this really stood out to me.

The film is an utter pain to watch; its a dismal and unconvincing drama followed by some tiresome and unfunny comedic scenes followed by psychological "twists." This is a movie that trades in a brisk pace for an attempt at building suspense and mood, and it utterly fails. The mood is irritating rather than entrancing and the suspense is sporadic rather than building. Throughout the second half a bunch of random bonkers stuff happens, so at least that's kind of entertaining.

The pitiful twists and turns are as predictable and tame as a Made-for-TV movie. Perhaps it was, the production value is certainly no higher than one (a cheap one). You should all go rent Shredder Orpheus, its a cheap movie that rules. Its nothing like this movie, but for some reason I was wishing I was was watching it the whole time I was watching this fairly unenjoyable film.

The Haunting In Connecticut

Title: The Haunting in Connecticut
Release Date: 2009
Score: 2 out of 4

This film is blighted by Hollywood necessity, brought on by a distinct choice to develop the screenplay for this too closely to the statements of the family members describing the events.

The Hollywood neccessity is to provide tractable film space in which to cram about three different films and a multitude of themes, which of course left for shoddy development of the themes, and lengths of plot and action which seem to include either "yearning/struggling" scenes far too often and in a perversely extensive length or exposition given much less time than its relative importance seemed to dictate.

It also didn't help that it was a completely modern shoot that is ostensibly a mid-80's period piece. It seems like the costuming and set design departments pegged 2007 instead of 1987.

This film is a failure on many levels, but it does deliver haunted house frights, even though they are eventually overshadowed by a bunch of dumb shit that happens, and the transmutation of the film from a haunted house flick into what is basically a "special/magic/gifted child must fight an evil no one else can face" type of movie.

Let's face it, Hollywood has no idea how to make a scary movie anymore. If they had stuck to one concept they could have had a good shot. But no, this isn't just a movie about a haunted house full of creepy thrills and jumps. It has to be a discussion of religious experience, and of course a film about the suffering of a dysfunctional family -- which never really reaches any kind of frightening heights in tension or suspense. There is, in a way, a lack of "infernal piping" that drives the dynamics of the family into insanity -- they remain sub-acute, with minor ridiculous outbursts, which rather than crackle with uncomfortable waves of mania, merely the stretch credulity of viewer.

Oh yeah and its also about alienation, loneliness, honesty. Its also a historical true crime thriller. And did I mention a commentary on the obliteration of family due to overconsumption and an economy of debt? I guess that was a huge issue in the fucking mid-80's!

Anyway, this film really has no idea what is wants to be. It is mediocre and jumbled, yet also full of tiresomely slow-moving filler which apparently are supposed to contain "pathos." It has a few cheap scares and as a fairly mind-numbing supernatural mystery adventure it isn't actually terrible, but it is not what it purports to be -- A fucking Haunted House movie!

Its certainly no Amityville Horror (the 1979 film based on the book by Jane Anson, of course). Do yourself a favor and just rent that instead.

The Skeptic

Title: The Skeptic
Release Date: 2009
Score: 1 out of 4

After an obnoxiously long and boring white text on black screen opening credits bonanza featuring an uninspired theme for a looong fucking time we are treated to some in media res - a cop trying to locate a woman in her dark, seemingly empty house... you get the idea...

We are soon introduced to our jackass "atheist" skeptic. His friend "Sully" is a superstitious paranoid played by Tom Arnold. Tom Arnold is difficult to deal with, as his presence in the film is noxious and nauseating, yet he becomes the essential forwarder of plot throughout the first part of the movie. I assume he is the ghost, with his presence driving the skeptic further towards insanity. Or at least that is what would happen to me if my friend was fucking TOM ARNOLD!! Christ why would you cast him in a horror movie? In any movie?

Unfortunately Mr. Skeptic is pretty boring throughout his haunted house existentialist breakdown, although the scenery is pretty and very chilling. Still, Tim Daly displays little depth in his acting, giving only occasional glimmers of technical excellence.

Daly also has little to work with, the dialog is banal and cheap. His possession and the progression of the ghost house trappings come along so slow that he generally just comes across as a violent creep, rather than a creature worth pitying.

The film is actually quite boring for most of the time. It doesn't really shape up high in any area, except for "crazy" points and "psychic" points or whatever. Actually from my own knowledge of general ghost theory, this movie is rather inaccurate as to how a parapsychologist and even a genuine skeptic would act in such situations they are found in.

Like the sleep lab psi op being run by the creepy parapsychologist, the whole movie is a machination of torture; it punishes the viewer at every turn with terrible lines, bad sets, and a girl who randomly shouts and shit. The basic gist is the concept that repressed memories cause psychokinetic outbursts -- or is it something else?!? Something more supernatural or worse, more psychopathological? What should be days in movie time is hours in this. The plot is like a short story lengthened to its breaking point and the payoff is hardly worth it... pretty boring actually.

I would avoid it, its pretty much pure shit. Bad writing, bad acting, and its not scary. Booooo! Go watch Shock Corridor instead! At least it has some laughs in it.