The year was 1999. I was sitting in the middle of my mother’s living room floor, carrying out my weekend ritual of watching IFC on digital cable until my retinas burned. There were tons of extraordinary films being shown on the channel at that time: Tom DiCillo’s Living in Oblivion, Happiness (which was my first experience with Todd Solondz and, my god, did that make an impression), the criminally underappreciated The Addiction… and then there was Black Circle Boys. This film taught me two things the day it graced my television screen: Firstly, I will always find dudes in spiked belts attractive. Secondly, just because a movie is “bad,” doesn’t mean it isn’t also kind of fabulous.
Black Circle Boys tells the story of troubled teen Kyle Sullivan (played by a very surly Scott Bairstow) who tumbles down a destructive path after the death of his best friend. Transferred to a new school in a new town, Kyle falls in with a group of self-professed Satanists led by the quasi-charismatic Shane Carver (Eric Mabius) and their lives rapidly devolve into chaos. On its surface, it seems like your average low-budget “drug-addled kids on a warpath” film, following Kyle and his new friends as they bond and wreak havoc a la petty theft, breaking and entering, trying – and failing – to wail like Deicide and, in many ways, that’s exactly what it is. But impressive camera work, some very smart writing from Matthew Carnahan and a couple of bang-up performances make this a surprisingly moving journey of loss and a haphazard quest for fraternity.
Sure, the film paints a frustratingly grim picture of goth culture at times and does nothing to help eradicate misconceptions about Satanism, which, frankly, pisses me off. There are also several scenes that feel better suited for a homespun afterschool special than a horror movie and Kyle’s hippie girlfriend being permanently clad in bright, light colors to represent the angel on his shoulder is a little on the nose for my taste. Despite these problems, however, the movie delivers refreshing realism thanks to cinematographer Geary McLeod and Mabius’s awkwardly emotional Shane. In fact, I enjoy Eric’s foray into edgy teen psychosis so much, I’m able to forgive – albeit laboriously – the fact that he was quite obviously twenty five years old when they shot this.
Even more than Mabius’s clear devotion to the role, Shane Carver is brilliantly written, both as a liberal homage to real life teen murderer Richard Kasso and as the embodiment of youthful arrogance colliding with pain and ignorance. Shane wants desperately to feel validated and loved, to rise victoriously above the suffering he’s experienced at the hands of his father, but his methods are as misguided and abusive as one would expect and he fails at… well, basically everything. He tries to be cool, but no amount of black clothes and spiked jewelry can mask his sentimentality. He forms a “kickass” thrash band, but has no idea how to play the guitar and refuses to take lessons. He works hard to foster a deep relationship with Kyle, but his persistent intensity and lack of sound judgment ultimately push his new friend away. This is all endlessly frustrating for Shane, of course, but he’s unable to express that constructively, so he acts out more and more violently until things come to a fatal head. Simply put, Shane Carver is one of the more well crafted angsty-turned-murderous teenagers I’ve ever seen depicted on screen.
In addition to Shane, about whom I could probably rave for another six paragraphs, we also have his lackey Rory, played perfectly by a young Chad Lindberg (fresh out of community theater, no less). Rory is timid, unconfident and eager to please, seeing in Shane everything Shane wishes the rest of the world saw, but because Shane hates himself, he has no respect for his one true fan and treats him like garbage. It’s a dynamic that tugs at my heartstrings increasingly as the story goes on. Additionally, we get a poignant performance from Dee Wallace as Mrs. Sullivan, Kyle’s distraught mother, who reaches a breaking point with her son in a way that feels all too real for those of us who were prone to brooding rebellion as children. The film also features a couple of fun cameos from 90s sweetheart Lisa Loeb and X frontman John Doe, so… yeah, if I haven’t stressed this enough, it’s worth a watch for the cast alone.
Is it a scary movie? No, not really, unless you’re afraid of a pot-bellied gothed-out Donnie Walbergh with boundary issues, which is more than a little unsettling at first glance, let’s just air that out right now. What it lacks in terror, though, it makes up for in the aforementioned angst and a moderate amount of manic energy, culminating in a memorable second-to-last scene that I still think about from time to time after all these years. There’s also a fair amount of dark humor sprinkled throughout the film, found in moments like the boys’ one and only band rehearsal or at the dinner table, when Mrs. Sullivan asks Kyle how school was:
Mrs. Sullivan: How was school today, Kyle?
Kyle: Fine.
Mr. Sullivan: Answer your mother in complete sentences.
Kyle: It was fine.
All in all, I feel Black Circle Boys is a bit of a hidden gem – deeply flawed, but charming in a way that seems to swell with repeat viewings. It has a depth I wasn’t expecting to find when I revisited it so many years later, most of which rests on the shoulders of – appropriately – the boys.
What I love about it: Mimi Melgaard’s refreshingly accurate wardrobe choices, an engaging story that hits on some pretty hard truths, Eric Mabius Eric Mabius Eric Mabius.
What doesn’t quite work for me: It’s obvious that our two main characters are fully grown adults, which diminishes the impact of some of their angst.
Overall rating: 
Final Girl Friday 