I’ve had the 1997 movie Black Circle Boys in my collection for a while (that’s about to change now that I’ve watched it again), and honestly, I seriously thought this was a David DeCoteau film. It’s pretty gay, it’s supposedly based on a true case from the 80s (but speaks more to the unwarranted angst of privileged 90s brats), and it’s ridiculously marketed as a horror movie. But mostly, it’s just a dark film about a bunch of troubled assholes that want a strong male figure like Satan in their life to look up to (and probably to fuck them).
Scott Bairstow (of the short-lived werewolf series Wolf Lake) is a troubled teen. Apparently, someone near to him died, and he may be to blame or just feel like he’s to blame. He moves to a new town with his parents—who really didn’t do their research if they were trying to move away from their dark past to a brighter future. His mother is Dee Wallace, and there’s wicked tension between he and his parents, but it’s ridiculously underdeveloped (translation in Dan-speak: there’s not enough Dee Wallace in this movie).
Scott meets a chick at his new school and tells her about his hardcore taste in music, so she points out a bunch of heavy metal dirt bags known for terrorizing the town regularly and for worshipping Satan. I guess she just wanted Scott to feel like he fit in at his new school? Scott soon joins the boys’ “black circle.” Eric Mabius (Resident Evil, Voodoo Moon, Reeker) is their leader, is rumored to have been in jail for killing his own brother, and goes all Class of 1984 on his teacher on a daily basis.
The boys bring Scott into the woods, tell him he can have whatever he desires if he worships the dark lord, and then swap blood around a fire. Eric also takes Scott swimming to show how long he can hold his breath underwater because he worships Satan—and also so he can take his shirt off in front of Scott. We also get Eric’s sob stories about his horrible life.
The boys then take Scott to their occult master and drug dealer—a very sleazed up Donnie Wahlberg (The Sixth Sense, New Kids on the Block, Marky Mark’s brother). Donnie leers at Scott, feels him up with the barrel of a gun, and asks if Scott wants to fuck him.
I’m assuming Donnie’s gay (and a bottom). But his open sexuality doesn’t stop his little bitches from bombarding their weakest member (Chad Lindberg of the I Spit on Your Grave remake) with gay slurs.
It becomes pretty clear that this movie is less about Satanism and more about sadistic, sexually confused pricks. The boys seem not to care that girls even exist as they go to a metal show, slamdance, fight with the band, get all shirtless and homoerotic in a pool before intimidating the pool’s owner, dig up a grave, beat some people, torture a cat and wipe its blood all over their naked torsos and chests around a campfire, and finally, torment the weakling so bad that Scott stands up for him. But it’s too late, and they end up doing something awful. Guess….
That move pretty much busts the inner ring of their circle. Now they’re after Scott for going all good boy on them. We are reminded of Scott’s purely heterosexual leanings as he becomes closer with the dumb bitch who got him into this whole mess to begin with by dangling the temptation in front of his face like a juicy red apple. The boys kidnap him and put a sack over his head, Donnie shows up to fondle his bare body and take a taste of his blood, he ends up in some underground lair, shirtless in a tub of water, Eric comes in shirtless and wet as well and tries to bring him back to the dark side with a homoerotic game of shirtless and wet wrestling, a phallic knife is whipped out, and—well, I won’t give it away, but let’s just say heteronormativity is restored.
I’m still not convinced this isn’t a David DeCoteau film.
