The Black Circle imbues the “cursed media” genre with psychological horrors

Leftovers from the 1970s – Self-Help register Claiming to teach the listener to “reach your full potential” – it creates a frightening mess for two sisters in Black circleA 2018 horror film worth checking out now Flocking on dither.

Made in Sweden by Spanish writer and director Adrian García Bogliano (2022 No exorcist), Black circle It plunges you into chaos by opening on a film clip purportedly taken from a correspondence course promoted by the Stockholm Magnetic Research Institute. The technique he uses is hypnosis to the max, and his claims are fantastic. Who wouldn’t want to become the best version of themselves once they get rid of all the bad energy and intrusive thoughts they’ve been holding on to since childhood?

It’s a tempting proposition for Celeste (Phyllis Jankel), a twenty-something whose life currently revolves around the drain of existence. She’s just broken up with her boyfriend and been fired from her summer job, and writing blockade has prevented her from starting a long-overdue school paper. So when her sister Issa (Erica Medvil) — whom she hasn’t seen in a while — invites her to visit her office, Celeste is impressed by Issa’s great work and upbeat attitude. Issa tells her that things are going well, and that she wants to help Celeste change her life.

Although Celeste gets a little annoyed by her impulsive sister, that is replaced by confusion when Issa hands her a record and tells her to “play side two while you sleep.” The influences, she promises, will change her life, and they all stem from a strange LP she finds among the trash left by “Grandma Lundstrom’s cousin,” who until his death was the orphan sisters’ only living relative. Celeste is suspicious of what looks like a cult coming, but gives him an idea. The next morning, she sat upright, quickly ran to her laptop, and triumphantly pounded page after page of her paper.

Of course, there is a benefit to this miracle of good luck, as well Black circle The film sets out to show exactly what this catch looks like, and the film divides itself into short chapters, unlike what might happen in a correspondence course. He also transitions back into a movie-within-a-movie to deliver a show about “hypnosis,” which is presented in upbeat terms that don’t match the increasingly troubled results we see with the sisters. This technique guides a person to unload the mental baggage that is holding him back, but once removed, the baggage takes the form of an “etheric dual,” a kind of doppelganger that gradually draws more and more energy from its original source.

This is annoying enough even before Black circle It introduces another layer of mythology, involving creatures that intervene if the ethereal pair feels too comfortable in the human world. This is an aspect of the story that doesn’t get enough fleshing out, however Black circle Otherwise, he is deeply invested in his subversion of New Age psychology. As their lives are choked by paranoid delusions that might be real, Issa and Celeste track down the woman who released the record, a psychic who suffered her own tragedy when she learned the harmful effects of hypnosis – and who grimly sets out to help her latest victim.

Although the “reverse exorcism” ritual that dominates the film’s third act takes some time, Black circle He has a unique energy and a confident, often psychedelic visual style that allows him to carve out a unique space in the world of cursed media films. But unlike existing characters, for example, The ring—Who watch a haunted video for entertainment, not knowing that they will be doomed— Black circleThe LP sisters are deliberately, if naively, open to the mind-warping powers of the LP. The resulting journey brings a lot of terror, but it also explains it Black circleThe deepest theme of: You must do the necessary work to overcome the negativity that has accumulated in your life, Instead of hoping for recovery by simply wishing the bad things away.

Black circle Now streaming on Shudder.

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