An amateur, lacklustre retelling of the true story of "Acid King" Ricky Kasso, who killed a kid in the woods by stabbing him and bashing his head in after making him say, "I love Satan!" This film is poorly put together, has a terrible non-ending, and completely muddles the facts in the case, padding the film out with boring nonsense. There are few adults in this film, and that hurts its credibility. Where are the parents? This story was done much more honestly and professionally (as well as graphically) by Jim Van Bebber in his classic short film, MY SWEET SATAN. BLACK CIRCLE BOYS is a boring, pointlessly homo-erotic version with little basis in fact and only minor entertainment value. The low budget of the film glaringly shows through in every scene, whereas in Van Bebber's even more low budget short, he uses his micro-budget as an asset, achieving a disturbing, quasi-documentary quality to his film that BLACK CIRCLE BOYS never comes close to. BLACK CIRCLE BOYS is bland but not terrible, and is one of the better films A-Pix has released on video (most everything they put out is beyond horrible, so I generally avoid anything on that label). However, if you want a much gorier, creepy and honest version of the Ricky Kasso case (with only a few minor details changed), you can't go wrong with Jim Van Bebber's MY SWEET SATAN. It's brutal and believable!
Review of Black Circle Boys
