Review of The Circle (2015)
Seen in 2017.
After a gay kid is supernaturally compelled to commit suicide, some high school girls discover they’re witches bound by prophecy and hunted by a warlock. The problem is they’re variously strangers and enemies. Working together will be the last thing they do.
Urban fantasy, imitating the style of Let the Right One In (2008). Ultimately just a metaphor about learning to be nice. It lacks the comedy, intelligence and action of a Buffy, yet it’s equally lackadaisical in its world building and barely superior in its special effects. The most interesting thing about it is the inclusion of an unrepentant bully in the group of protagonists. The second is the mentor witch—the principal of the school—who claims to represent a powerful Council that can “run tests” on witches to discover their powers, but she never proves its existence, supposedly because of the Council’s disbelief in prophecy. The end credits are curious, alternating between the symbols of the magic system’s six elements with various images completely unrelated to the plot but tenuously related to the genre: Urban exploration and old photos that look completely innocuous.