Full Circle

Full Circle: The Haunting of Julia (1977) BFI Flipside U0005 4K UltraHD Blu Ray (15)

Little seen since its release yet with a wealth of acting talent and a taut script, ‘Full Circle’ needs and fully deserves the Flipside 4K Ultra HD reboot and release.

Based on the Peter Straub (Ghost Story, Lost Boy, Lost Girl) 1975 novel ‘Julia’, and directed by Richard Loncraine (Slade in Flame, Richard III), Full Circle has one foot in the ‘woman in peril’ genre and one in the ‘weird children’ cycle, using both to impressive effect. Mia Farrow plays the vulnerable, child-like woman, Julia, a bag of bones in frumpy clothes and her signature boy’s crop, recently bereaved and separated. Discharged from hospital and newly ensconced in a large, fully furnished house in the well-heeled neighbourhood of Holland Park, Julia sets about rebuilding her life without her controlling husband.

Finding a child’s room containing an extensive toy collection, Julia is reminded of her deceased daughter, becoming unnerved at the strange noises she keeps hearing and at household appliances, apparently turning themselves on. Colin Towns’ beautiful piano music punctuates the story, counterpointed by Julia’s friend, antique dealer Mark Berkeley (Tom Conti) playing a little on the house’s out of tune grand. Later, her sighting of a young girl at a local park, whom she thinks may be her daughter, only adds to her nervousness and depression, and she returns home.

Estranged husband Magnus (Kier Dullea) continues to hover around her, keen to restore their marriage, even enlisting the help of his sister, Lily (Jill Bennett) in this. Julia decides to hold a welcoming gathering at her new home, and Lily brings along the eccentric Mrs. Flood, (Anna Wing) a psychic medium, who suggests they hold a séance. Although Julia is reluctant to take part, she agrees, and after the usual ghostly histrionics, Mrs. Flood warns her to leave the ‘evil’ house immediately.

The ’accidents’ begin to come thick and fast at this point. Magnus breaks into Julia’s house and gets into the basement but suffers a fall and is impaled on a piece of glass.

A neighbour tells Julia about some previous occupants of the house, two weird sisters and a Mrs Rudd, who did have a daughter, about the same age as Julia’s dead daughter. She also reveals her vision of a boy, covered in blood, in a playground. A little research into an old newspaper at the British Museum reading room turns up the report of the grisly murder of a young boy by a group of children. A little more reveals the name of the boy’s mother, whom she traces and visits. The boy’s mother, blind Greta Braden, (an imperious Mary Morris) tells of the tragedy and the cold indifference of the protagonist Olivia, who had a mysterious, absolute power over the other children. She also reveals that a vagrant was executed for this crime, which he certainly did not commit.

Visits to the now middle aged ‘children’ of Olivia’s gang prove a little helpful, turning up creepy piano teacher Captain Paul Winter (a frosty, dismissive performance from Edward Hardwicke) and the poor, wretched David Swift (Robin Gammell, evoking this piteous yet dangerous man) living in alcoholic squalor in a miserable bedsit. The former is keen to get rid of her without talking about his childhood crimes, but the latter tells her where to find Olivia’s mother. He later slips on his own landing and falls down the tenement stairs. Cracking his head open in a style reminiscent of the Italian Giallo. Julia’s friend Mark, having been told of these dangerous encounters, tells her to pack up and leave the house, and is himself killed by his electric lamp falling into his bath. 

Julia finds Olivia’s aged, distracted mother in a depressing psychiatric home, and she is confronted by the realization of the true level of damage inflicted by daughter Olivia. The mother tells Julia that she killed her own daughter, as she was inherently evil.  The climax of the film, like the opening scene of daughter Kate (Sophie Ward) choking to death, is truly shocking.

The film does have some similarities to the hair-raising Rosemary’s Baby, which had Mia Farrow playing a woman virtually imprisoned in a rambling mansion, feeling hunted and violated without knowing why, and researching the history of a house where dreadful things have been plotted, and have taken place. But ‘Full Circle’s quieter, brooding atmosphere and slow-burning revelation of barely describable child-on-child cruelty and murder ensure that the horrors are shown to be real and earthly, even if the dark lode of occultism can be seen below the surface.

Scenester

16/4/2023

Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQdsePdS4OE

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