Welcome to the Circle

Like how it jump straight into the movie instead of beating around the bush and long intro. What can be nice. It is very lovely movie, nice flow but you can detect straight away it is a B with the special effects and also the acting and camera usage. I will say the music is done quite nice. What I do not like is any information about anything of the situation. Ugh it is like getting carried away in the movie without any lead real darkness. Pity because I like the movie idea alot and also it is not just a cult. Pity pity pity 4/10

source: Welcome to the Circle

This is not purely horror. It is more psychological thriller combined with sci fi. It requires an active brain and attention, something several reviewers seem to lack. It is far from perfect, but it is worth a watch if you want to think a little and not be spoon fed.

Surviving a harrowing camping trip, a father and his daughter are taken in by a strange cult-like group and offer to take them in until they heal, but the more they stay there the more they come to believe something is wrong with the group and are forced to rely on a former cult member searching for a missing person to get them out. This was quite a fun and creepy genre effort. One of its strongest aspects is the engrossing slow-burn build-up that offers quite a lot to like in regards to the activities conducted by the group and their true intentions. Taking the stereotypical route of the smiling, friendly-faced attractive group of overly sweet people, caring and nurturing that belie a hint of sinisterness behind their facade, the easy assumption of this potentially being an overly-friendly group of people with their actions is quite nice as the daughter is so easily swayed to stay so quickly that he begins to fear for her safety. That becomes quite sinister with their intentions and the ultimate reveal of what's going on at the compound with the multi-dimensional travel and over-the-top hallucinations they can bring about on other victims. This fantastic build-up manages to make the rest of the film quite creepy and chilling as the series of hauntings and hallucinations become quite frightening and threatening. The attempts to bring the father into the cult manage to come off incredibly well, from the circular nightmare-inducing argument he has with the leader to the chasing around the woods by the other members trying to kill him. This brings out the enjoyable nature of their sinister plans as the series of mind-games that are played with not only those two but the later group searching for the missing woman in the cult which has a lot to like with the craziness of the situation getting progressively wilder as time goes on including the rather clever manner in which they bring everything down at the end. These here manage to give this enough to like that it holds up over its problematic areas. There are some big issues with the film. The most obvious one is the complete lack of anything really resembling action throughout here, as the vast majority of the build-up is based around the metaphorical traps from the group towards the two. Trying to make sense of the various antics and the constant use of mannequins around the woods even for those who aren't a part of the group is where the focus lies, taking more of a science-fiction route rather than a more overt horror route. For those expecting weird rituals and other typical cult-like behavior, this series of alternate reality talk and mind-trip sequences will be a turn-off and make it seem duller than it really is especially with the overlong running time which is the other issue here. This runs a bit longer than it should for what it's trying to accomplish, going at a slightly slower tempo and running in circles repeating things that don't need to be said which all hold this back. Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Violence and children-in-jeopardy.

There is a series titled The Path. I thought this would be similar. It is not. It is much much much crazier. There was barely any thrill; yet, I was pleasantly intrigued the entire film.

Like how it jump straight into the movie instead of beating around the bush and long intro. What can be nice. It is very lovely movie, nice flow but you can detect straight away it is a B with the special effects and also the acting and camera usage. I will say the music is done quite nice. What I do not like is any information about anything of the situation. Ugh it is like getting carried away in the movie without any lead real darkness. Pity because I like the movie idea alot and also it is not just a cult. Pity pity pity 4/10

I think this film is another kind of dogma and cult, quite difficult to understand but very depicting that man actually has a veil of fake happiness and it is depicted in the form of a mannequin.

Nobody even tries to make this kind of movie anymore. I've been doing nothing but sitting in my armchair eating sausage and watching stuff since the plague hit and this is the best thing I've seen by far. An independent film that is compelling and thoughtful and frightening as F, this is storytelling like it used to be. Religious, ideological, secular .. whatever kind of cults - make people uncomfortable and films that portray them generally give us a couple hours of gooey superiority for not being in one. Welcome to the Circle works us a bit harder since the cult it uncovers appears to make no purist, no morally superior, no good intentioned tenet to draw anyone into its system to begin with. It's like an actual cult of breathing mannequins who are actually devoid of self awareness (with some psychedelic dreams and illusions). Reminds me more than a bit of some of the current news cycles. Thumbs up to all involved!!

This isn't the best "cult in the middle of nowhere woods" movie that I've seen. But it's watchable. It has some random gore scenes. Heck, the creepy mannequins make it all worth while to me. Reviews are bashing the acting. If you consider this film some of the worst acting you've ever seen, consider yourself lucky.

The most frightening thing I can imagine is David Fowler directing my dreams. Sadistic, beautiful, perfect.