Circle of eight

Year of release : 2009

Run time : 1h24m

Genre : Mystery / Horror

The intro credits of the movie open with a water sequence, in which, we find later, the lead, Jessica, is trying to save her little brother who was drowning.

After the intro we see a building caught by fire, and a woman falling off the window ledge.

After this, we see Jessica who is driving into Los Angeles renting an apartment into the Dante building.

The landlord, who has the office in the elevator (!), is being cryptic, telling her to stay out of the file room, and it’s even in the contract. He seems to always know when something happens in her apartment, and comes to help.

When she meets the tenants (they all come to her place as if they know her or she owes them something), they are all weird, almost acting like they know her, and seem to not really like her.

One of them is always with his camera, filming everything, and mostly her. I found it amazing the camera could catch what she was saying, considering he was in different rooms in opposite parts of the building.

Soon, she starts seeing the tenants dying in atrocious ways, but when she calls someone, the person disappears, and call her crazy.

The only one who seems to be on her side is Evan, who likes her and she seems to like him too.

This was one of my favorite movies, until last night when I watched it again. SPOILERS The whole idea is that they are all supposed to be dead, and they are caught in a loop replaying the same day when Jessica moved into the building. They all remember everything, except for her who has no idea what’s going on, and doesn’t remember them.

They all hate her and hold her responsible for their deaths [so they play tricks on her, like pretending to be dead (so f@king dumb!) but they are dead?!], but she’s not to blame! She was not the one throwing the pillows towards the candle! Also, she was out of her apartment the whole day, so who lit the candle and put it on the floor? The same guy who threw the pillows onto the candle!

They were making out for quite some time as the fire was burning right next to them. Honestly, they didn’t hear it or smell it?!

At the end they all escape except for her (although they’ve been reliving the fire for more than 900.000 times?)?! It doesn’t make any sense ! The moral of the story was, she was supposed to stay with the guy caught under the closet, instead of trying to save herself or trying to get help?! How did the others get away because she died?! So they were not dead! Make it make sense! END OF SPOILERS

The acting was good.

The soundtrack was good. The intro credits track is amazing! I also liked the first song played, that Jessica listens to.

The movie has an 8% rating from the audience with no rating from the critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 3.7 rating on IMDB.

Viewer discretion is advised, as the movie contains nudity in the first 30 minutes, twice.

Rating : Could have been a contender !