Full Circle (1977 film)
Encyclopedia
Full Circle is a 1977 horror film
directed by Richard Loncraine
. In this movie, a woman fleeing an unhappy marriage and the death of her daughter is haunted by the ghost of a vengeful little girl.
The film opens with Julia Lofting (Mia Farrow
), her husband Magnus (Keir Dullea
), and their daughter Kate (Sophie Ward
) sitting down to eat breakfast. While Kate is eating an apple, she starts to choke and violently falls to the floor gasping for breath. Julia and Magnus, both unprepared for the situation, try desperately to get the food out of her throat. Magnus calls for an ambulance while Julia frantically decides what to do. After realizing what little time Kate has, Julia reaches for a dull knife and tries to perform a tracheotomy
. Unfortunately, this causes Kate to bleed to death.
We soon find that Julia has been in a rehabilitation clinic for several weeks following the incident. Her doctor comes into her room and tells her that her husband thinks it's time for her to come back home. Julia, apparently feeling that her husband is more interested in her money and doesn't care about how she feels, flees the hospital in a cab. We see a real estate agent showing her a new house she has decided to move into with money from her trust fund. She tours her new house, seeing that it is completely furnished and that there is a room upstairs with a child's toys in it. As she unpacks, she finds her dead daughter's clothes and toys. She winds up her daughter's clown doll with sharp, clanking cymbals and accidentally cuts her finger on them.
She meets with her sister-in-law Lily at a restaurant, who says that she and Magnus have been worried about her. She tries to convince her that Magnus still loves her and to come back home. But Julia is adamant in her decision and says that things with Magnus were never right. After leaving Lily, Julia takes a stroll through the park where she thinks she catches a glimpse of Katie amongst the children, but when she looks, the girl is gone.
After getting take-out, Julia goes to her house to find that she has locked herself out. Trying to look for another way in, she hears a noise and asks if anyone is there. She gets no reply. She crawls in through a window and scrapes her knee on the way in. When she glimpses the blood, she is reminded of what happened to Kate and breaks down in tears asking Kate to forgive her. She is interrupted by another noise, however, and goes to investigate. She finds that the heater in her room has been turned on, and calls out in the hallway telling Magnus to leave her alone, as she thinks that Magnus is spying on her.
The next day, as she is unpacking new furnishings for her new house, Magnus calls her and asks her to come back to him. She tells him to leave her alone. Magnus then threatens to send her back to the hospital if she refuses. She hangs up and walks upstairs where she encounters her friend, Mark (Tom Conti
). She shows him around and realizes that the heater has been mysteriously turned on again. When she looks out the window and sees children playing, she thinks of Kate again and cries in Mark's arms.
Meanwhile, Magnus and Lily are discussing what to do about Julia. Magnus insists that he will get her back any way he can. Later, Julia is walking through the park and sees the blonde girl again. Thinking it is Kate, she goes over to her but finds her gone again. In the spot where she was is a mutilated turtle and a small knife. She runs home and washes off the blood and starts to breakdown again. However, she gets a call from Lily asking if her and her friends can use her new house to conduct a seance. Mark decides to join and is told by Lily that she doesn't want him to make things worse. He responds by saying that he hopes a seance in the house won't either. While talking with the medium, Mrs. Fludd, she explains that spirits need to control someone on our side to carry out physical acts. During the seance, Mrs. Fludd freaks out and tells Julia to leave the house as soon as possible. Moments later, one of Lily's friends falls down the stairs on the way to the bathroom.
Julia walks Mrs. Fludd home and asks what made her so scared. Mrs. Fludd tells Julia she must leave the house because there is evil. She also says she saw a child. Julia, convinced that it is Kate's spirit, asks Mrs. Fludd if it was a little blond girl, but Mrs. Fludd is too shaken to answer. When Julia goes home, she takes a picture of the room with the child's things, but finds nothing in the developed photo. Meanwhile, Mark and Magnus argue about what should be done about Julia. Magnus decides to break into her house to get her back. The heater is on full blast in the house and makes Magnus sick. As he cleans up, he sees something out of the corner of his eye and chases it, believing it to be Julia. He follows it to the basement and is spooked by what he sees, causing him to fall from the staircase and cut his throat on glass at the bottom, dying.
...
The next morning, Julia comes home and meet Mrs. Claudia Branscombe, whose husband tried to warn away Magnus the night before and received a bruised elbow for his trouble. Julia invites her in for coffee and Claudia tells her about the previous owners of the house. She reveals that before the last owners, two elderly sisters, the house belonged to Heather Rudge who "had a child without any of the usual formalities". Mrs. Rudge's daughter choked to death and disappeared, after which Mrs. Rudge moved away.
Shaken, Julia goes to visit Mrs. Flood, who has taken ill ever since the seance. Julia tells her about Katie's death but Mrs. Flood tells her the child she saw was a little boy in the park, bleeding to death. She breaks down and Julia is asked to leave.
Julia talks to Mark who tries to convince her to leave the issue alone and move, but Julia wants to find out about the bleeding boy that Mrs. Flood saw. Julia visits the historical library and reads through old newspapers. She finds an article about a boy murdered and mutilated in the Holland Park.
The next day, she goes to visit Mrs. Greta Braden, the mother of the murdered boy, Geoffery. Mrs. Braden tells her a vagrant was executed for the crime, but that it was the other children who tortured her son, calling him a "Kraut" and "Hun" for being German. She says she and her companion Katherine have been watching the children, now grown, who killed her son, and asks if she will visit the remaining two, Captain Paul Winter and David Swift.
Julia goes looking for Paul Winter, but he dismisses her after she says she's been to see Mrs. Braden. Outside she sees Miss Pinner, who had fallen down the stairs, who denies seeing something frightening in the house.
Julia visits David Swift, a drunkard, that evening, he admits the tramp who was hanged was innocent, and recommends she speak to Heather Rudge about her dead daughter Olivia. He says, as a child, Olivia had power over himself and the other children. She taught them about sex, made them each kill an animal, then made them all murder Geoffery Braden. She had always wanted to kill a person. She killed him by stuffing grass and dirt in his mouth and suffocating him with her coat, while the other children held him, then mutilated him after. David says he only told one person, Heather Rudge.
Julia takes pills to help her sleep that night. In the dark a child's hand caresses her face and holds her hand. The telephone wakes her and she breaks a water glass. David Swift, walking down the stairs in his building, slips on a broken bottle and falls over the railing, dying.
Julia goes Mark's lighting store the next morning, and tells him everything she found about Geoffery and Olivia but he doesn't believe her. She wants to help Olivia by visiting Heather in Wales, Mark insists on coming with her. That evening she discovers the heater on and it won't turn off, she tries to unplug it and shocks herself. At his apartment above the store, Mark is killed by electrocution when a lamp falls into his bath, while at home, Julia lies in bed humming and giggling.
Julia visits Mrs. Rudge in the psychiatric home in Swansea. She says Olivia killed Katie, and that Olivia is not dead because evil never dies. She says Julia is not safe and that she killed Olivia after she learned she about the murder. When Julia turns to face her as she leaves her eyes change, and Mrs. Rudge dies of a heart attack.
At home, Julia sees Olivia in the bathroom mirror. She sees Olivia in the living room on the floor playing with the clown toy and takes it from her. She tells Olivia everything is all right now, offers her a hug and asks her to stay with her. The scene fades and we hear the toy clink, then Julia come back into view, bleeding to death from two cuts on her neck, seemingly made by the sharp cymbals.
Full Cast
Mia Farrow ... Julia Lofting
Keir Dullea ... Magnus Lofting
Tom Conti ... Mark Berkeley
Jill Bennett ... Lily Lofting
Robin Gammell ... David Swift
Cathleen Nesbitt... Heather Rudge
Anna Wing ... Rosa Flood
Edward Hardwicke... Captain Paul Winter
Mary Morris ... Greta Braden
Pauline Jameson ... Claudia Branscombe
Arthur Howard ... Piggott
Peter Sallis ... Jeffrey Branscombe
Damaris Hayman ... Miss Pinner
Sophie Ward ... Kate Lofting
Hilda Fenemore ... Katherine
Nigel Havers ... Estate Agent
Samantha Gates ... Olivia Rudge
Denis Lill ... Doctor
Julian Fellowes ... Library Assistant
Michael Bilton ... Salesman
Yvonne Edgell ... Mrs. Flood's Niece
Robert Farrant ... Receptionist
Oliver Maguire ... Nurse
Susan Porrett ... Mrs. Ward
John A. Tinn ... Customer
Elizabeth Weaver... Mother in Showroom
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
directed by Richard Loncraine
Richard Loncraine
Richard Loncraine is a British film and television director.Loncraine received early training in the features department of the BBC, including a season directing items for Tomorrow's World...
. In this movie, a woman fleeing an unhappy marriage and the death of her daughter is haunted by the ghost of a vengeful little girl.
The film opens with Julia Lofting (Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow is an American actress, singer, humanitarian, and fashion model.Farrow first gained wide acclaim for her role as Allison Mackenzie in the soap opera Peyton Place, and for her subsequent short-lived marriage to Frank Sinatra...
), her husband Magnus (Keir Dullea
Keir Dullea
Keir Dullea is an American actor best known for the character of astronaut David Bowman, whom he portrayed in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey and in 1984's 2010: The Year We Make Contact...
), and their daughter Kate (Sophie Ward
Sophie Ward
Sophie Ward , is an English actress and the daughter of actor, Simon Ward.-Career:One of Ward's early film roles was in the film Young Sherlock Holmes. Other early films included Return to Oz, Little Dorrit and A Summer Story, and she also portrayed the unattainable love object in the video of Roxy...
) sitting down to eat breakfast. While Kate is eating an apple, she starts to choke and violently falls to the floor gasping for breath. Julia and Magnus, both unprepared for the situation, try desperately to get the food out of her throat. Magnus calls for an ambulance while Julia frantically decides what to do. After realizing what little time Kate has, Julia reaches for a dull knife and tries to perform a tracheotomy
Tracheotomy
Among the oldest described surgical procedures, tracheotomy consists of making an incision on the anterior aspect of the neck and opening a direct airway through an incision in the trachea...
. Unfortunately, this causes Kate to bleed to death.
We soon find that Julia has been in a rehabilitation clinic for several weeks following the incident. Her doctor comes into her room and tells her that her husband thinks it's time for her to come back home. Julia, apparently feeling that her husband is more interested in her money and doesn't care about how she feels, flees the hospital in a cab. We see a real estate agent showing her a new house she has decided to move into with money from her trust fund. She tours her new house, seeing that it is completely furnished and that there is a room upstairs with a child's toys in it. As she unpacks, she finds her dead daughter's clothes and toys. She winds up her daughter's clown doll with sharp, clanking cymbals and accidentally cuts her finger on them.
She meets with her sister-in-law Lily at a restaurant, who says that she and Magnus have been worried about her. She tries to convince her that Magnus still loves her and to come back home. But Julia is adamant in her decision and says that things with Magnus were never right. After leaving Lily, Julia takes a stroll through the park where she thinks she catches a glimpse of Katie amongst the children, but when she looks, the girl is gone.
After getting take-out, Julia goes to her house to find that she has locked herself out. Trying to look for another way in, she hears a noise and asks if anyone is there. She gets no reply. She crawls in through a window and scrapes her knee on the way in. When she glimpses the blood, she is reminded of what happened to Kate and breaks down in tears asking Kate to forgive her. She is interrupted by another noise, however, and goes to investigate. She finds that the heater in her room has been turned on, and calls out in the hallway telling Magnus to leave her alone, as she thinks that Magnus is spying on her.
The next day, as she is unpacking new furnishings for her new house, Magnus calls her and asks her to come back to him. She tells him to leave her alone. Magnus then threatens to send her back to the hospital if she refuses. She hangs up and walks upstairs where she encounters her friend, Mark (Tom Conti
Tom Conti
Thomas "Tom" Conti is a Scottish actor, theatre director and novelist.-Early life:Born Thomas Conti in Paisley, Renfrewshire, he was brought up Roman Catholic, but he considers himself anti-religious...
). She shows him around and realizes that the heater has been mysteriously turned on again. When she looks out the window and sees children playing, she thinks of Kate again and cries in Mark's arms.
Meanwhile, Magnus and Lily are discussing what to do about Julia. Magnus insists that he will get her back any way he can. Later, Julia is walking through the park and sees the blonde girl again. Thinking it is Kate, she goes over to her but finds her gone again. In the spot where she was is a mutilated turtle and a small knife. She runs home and washes off the blood and starts to breakdown again. However, she gets a call from Lily asking if her and her friends can use her new house to conduct a seance. Mark decides to join and is told by Lily that she doesn't want him to make things worse. He responds by saying that he hopes a seance in the house won't either. While talking with the medium, Mrs. Fludd, she explains that spirits need to control someone on our side to carry out physical acts. During the seance, Mrs. Fludd freaks out and tells Julia to leave the house as soon as possible. Moments later, one of Lily's friends falls down the stairs on the way to the bathroom.
Julia walks Mrs. Fludd home and asks what made her so scared. Mrs. Fludd tells Julia she must leave the house because there is evil. She also says she saw a child. Julia, convinced that it is Kate's spirit, asks Mrs. Fludd if it was a little blond girl, but Mrs. Fludd is too shaken to answer. When Julia goes home, she takes a picture of the room with the child's things, but finds nothing in the developed photo. Meanwhile, Mark and Magnus argue about what should be done about Julia. Magnus decides to break into her house to get her back. The heater is on full blast in the house and makes Magnus sick. As he cleans up, he sees something out of the corner of his eye and chases it, believing it to be Julia. He follows it to the basement and is spooked by what he sees, causing him to fall from the staircase and cut his throat on glass at the bottom, dying.
...
The next morning, Julia comes home and meet Mrs. Claudia Branscombe, whose husband tried to warn away Magnus the night before and received a bruised elbow for his trouble. Julia invites her in for coffee and Claudia tells her about the previous owners of the house. She reveals that before the last owners, two elderly sisters, the house belonged to Heather Rudge who "had a child without any of the usual formalities". Mrs. Rudge's daughter choked to death and disappeared, after which Mrs. Rudge moved away.
Shaken, Julia goes to visit Mrs. Flood, who has taken ill ever since the seance. Julia tells her about Katie's death but Mrs. Flood tells her the child she saw was a little boy in the park, bleeding to death. She breaks down and Julia is asked to leave.
Julia talks to Mark who tries to convince her to leave the issue alone and move, but Julia wants to find out about the bleeding boy that Mrs. Flood saw. Julia visits the historical library and reads through old newspapers. She finds an article about a boy murdered and mutilated in the Holland Park.
The next day, she goes to visit Mrs. Greta Braden, the mother of the murdered boy, Geoffery. Mrs. Braden tells her a vagrant was executed for the crime, but that it was the other children who tortured her son, calling him a "Kraut" and "Hun" for being German. She says she and her companion Katherine have been watching the children, now grown, who killed her son, and asks if she will visit the remaining two, Captain Paul Winter and David Swift.
Julia goes looking for Paul Winter, but he dismisses her after she says she's been to see Mrs. Braden. Outside she sees Miss Pinner, who had fallen down the stairs, who denies seeing something frightening in the house.
Julia visits David Swift, a drunkard, that evening, he admits the tramp who was hanged was innocent, and recommends she speak to Heather Rudge about her dead daughter Olivia. He says, as a child, Olivia had power over himself and the other children. She taught them about sex, made them each kill an animal, then made them all murder Geoffery Braden. She had always wanted to kill a person. She killed him by stuffing grass and dirt in his mouth and suffocating him with her coat, while the other children held him, then mutilated him after. David says he only told one person, Heather Rudge.
Julia takes pills to help her sleep that night. In the dark a child's hand caresses her face and holds her hand. The telephone wakes her and she breaks a water glass. David Swift, walking down the stairs in his building, slips on a broken bottle and falls over the railing, dying.
Julia goes Mark's lighting store the next morning, and tells him everything she found about Geoffery and Olivia but he doesn't believe her. She wants to help Olivia by visiting Heather in Wales, Mark insists on coming with her. That evening she discovers the heater on and it won't turn off, she tries to unplug it and shocks herself. At his apartment above the store, Mark is killed by electrocution when a lamp falls into his bath, while at home, Julia lies in bed humming and giggling.
Julia visits Mrs. Rudge in the psychiatric home in Swansea. She says Olivia killed Katie, and that Olivia is not dead because evil never dies. She says Julia is not safe and that she killed Olivia after she learned she about the murder. When Julia turns to face her as she leaves her eyes change, and Mrs. Rudge dies of a heart attack.
At home, Julia sees Olivia in the bathroom mirror. She sees Olivia in the living room on the floor playing with the clown toy and takes it from her. She tells Olivia everything is all right now, offers her a hug and asks her to stay with her. The scene fades and we hear the toy clink, then Julia come back into view, bleeding to death from two cuts on her neck, seemingly made by the sharp cymbals.
Full Cast
Mia Farrow ... Julia Lofting
Keir Dullea ... Magnus Lofting
Tom Conti ... Mark Berkeley
Jill Bennett ... Lily Lofting
Robin Gammell ... David Swift
Cathleen Nesbitt... Heather Rudge
Anna Wing ... Rosa Flood
Edward Hardwicke... Captain Paul Winter
Mary Morris ... Greta Braden
Pauline Jameson ... Claudia Branscombe
Arthur Howard ... Piggott
Peter Sallis ... Jeffrey Branscombe
Damaris Hayman ... Miss Pinner
Sophie Ward ... Kate Lofting
Hilda Fenemore ... Katherine
Nigel Havers ... Estate Agent
Samantha Gates ... Olivia Rudge
Denis Lill ... Doctor
Julian Fellowes ... Library Assistant
Michael Bilton ... Salesman
Yvonne Edgell ... Mrs. Flood's Niece
Robert Farrant ... Receptionist
Oliver Maguire ... Nurse
Susan Porrett ... Mrs. Ward
John A. Tinn ... Customer
Elizabeth Weaver... Mother in Showroom