[film reel crackling]
[dramatic horror music playing]
Do you believe in a world other than our own?
Perhaps you've been walking home late at night
and felt someone watching you,
but when you turn,
no one was there.
Perhaps you catch a glimpse of yourself across a crowded room.
No, not a mirror,
but another you.
Some may turn away from these strange occurrences
and never look back.
But others,
they may wonder if they've caught a glimpse
into another world.
A dimension separated from ours by the thinnest of veils.
A realm of infinite power
and infinite horror.
Where time is ever-expanding and ever-contracting.
And if this other world exists,
some believe it lies at the very center of…
the Circle.
[dramatic horror music playing]
[film whirring]
[ominous theme music playing]
[intense music playing]
[Steven] Hey, Danny.
I can't believe you're eight.
You know, I remember the first moment I saw you.
I thought to myself,
"Here is a boy that will love stop-motion skeletons just as much as me."
Anyway, now you don't have to wait for old dad to get out the projector.
Now you can watch all these greatest hits
until your eyeballs fall out.
Happy birthday, son.
I love you.
[swords clanging]
[telephone ringing]
-Hello? -Dan, I'm outside.
Mark?
[Mark] I've been leaving you messages.
You can't say you're gonna launch a rescue through time-space continuum
and not call me back.
You're not supposed to be here.
I was worried.
-Gonna let me in or not? -I can't.
This whole place is under surveillance.
Seriously? Still living in a fishbowl?
I thought you would've shut that shit down by now.
Hijacked the feed, replaced it with 24-hour Tarkovsky.
I'm fine. I'm sorry you came all this way.
Dude, come on, it took forever to get here.
I got lost, I'm fucking freezing, I'm hungry.
I found Thomas Bellows.
Guy with the notebooks.
I found his girlfriend, um, Alicia Flores.
She said Davenport hired him, like, six years ago,
offered him a shit ton of cash to digitize a bunch of old VHS tapes, soap operas,
thousands of hours of stuff from like 20, 30 years ago.
Wait, soap operas? Why?
I don't know, she wouldn't say.
She signed some kind of, um, NDA after the accident and--
Wait, what accident?
A few weeks after he wrapped the job here,
he died in a single-car accident up in Nova Scotia.
She said Thomas lost his shit up here.
Like paranoid delusions, mania, the whole nine yards.
You said you've been seeing things here. You said you've been seeing Melody.
Mark,
I'm fine.
I promise.
Go home.
I'll see you when I get back.
Dan. Dan!
[glass shatters]
Fuck your fishbowl.
[machine whirring]
[camcorder beeps]
What…
What the fuck?
Okay.
It's, um…
I don't know what day it is,
but I woke up in someone's apartment and I…
don't know where I am and I don't know how I got here.
[emergency vehicle siren chirps]
[indistinct police radio chatter]
[camcorder beeps]
[elevator dings]
Melody Pendras?
We're following up on the death of a tenant last night.
[male officer] We'd like to ask you a few questions.
[Melody] I was at an art show with a friend,
and then I walked home and, um…
talked to someone who lives in the building,
and then he just…
Chris just…
fell.
Right in front of us.
So you knew the victim.
No.
I mean, um…
Yes, sort of.
I met him yesterday.
I was interviewing him for a project here in the apartment.
Thank you for your time.
We'll be in touch if we have more questions.
He didn't jump.
I know that's what you think, but he didn't jump. He was pushed.
You saw someone push him?
No.
But I…
He wanted to get clean, he wanted to get out.
There's this man in the building, Samuel Spare, and he--
Professor Spare.
Yeah, we spoke to him this morning.
He said he was with you at the time of the incident.
He is not who he says he is.
He is not a fucking professor.
Here, I have proof.
What? No, no, no. No.
He took them.
He took the books.
There's this priest from St. Albert's, Father Russo.
He died on the subway tracks the other night,
and I think Samuel pushed him too.
Maybe you and Chris weren't strangers?
-Maybe you were using together? -[scoffs] What?
No. No, I don't do drugs.
Look, just go up to the sixth floor,
and there are all these people locked up in there.
And Samuel has got them hooked on this drug and it's…
Thank you for your time.
[telephone ringing]
-Hello? -[woman] Melody Pendras?
Yes.
This is Stuyvesant Health Center.
We're calling about a patient named Anabelle Cho.
[doctor] That's correct…
Anabelle?
Anabelle.
Hey.
Hey, what happened?
Why are you handcuffed to the bed?
She has a message.
She's in there.
Who has a message?
Anabelle.
Anabelle, what happened?
[doctor] She broke a woman's jaw.
What?
Someone named Gabby Stanton.
She also stabbed a security officer in the eye with a nail.
[scoffs]
No, no, no, that… that can't be right.
She was hallucinating when they brought her in last night.
Does she have a history of mental illness?
Schizophrenia or bipolar disorder?
-No, nothing like that. -Any history of drug use?
Nothing came back on the tox screen,
but methamphetamines or ketamine could cause a drug-induced psychosis.
What about mold?
Mold?
She's been using this paint.
I think it's made out of some kind of mold
that grows in our building.
The moment she started using it, she was a completely different person.
It's possible.
Ingesting or breathing a neurotoxic mold could cause hallucinations
or other kinds of neurological damage.
If I get you a sample, can you help her?
And please, can you take those fucking handcuffs off?
She isn't this person.
Anabelle would never hurt someone.
Bring me the sample.
-I'll see what I can do. -Okay.
Cassandra.
Cassandra!
Oh, well, you're quite a sight.
Where is it? The paint.
That poisonous fucking paint.
It's mold, isn't it? Toxic mold?
Mold?
I wouldn't know anything about that. It's Eleanor's paint.
Where is it?
I'm afraid I gave it all to Anabelle. You'll have to ask her.
Anabelle had a psychotic break last night.
But you know that, don't you?
You were there. You saw it happen.
You saw them arrest her.
We thought she was strong enough. I thought she'd bear up.
What?
Well, we wouldn't let anyone else have them, of course.
She opened a window.
I knew she was special the moment I met her.
She's a true Spirit Receiver.
Just like my Eleanor.
Fuck Eleanor.
What did you do to her?
What window did she open?
Who is that woman in the paintings?
What the fuck did you do to Anabelle?
Melody.
I'm sorry.
You need to leave with me right now.
I'm not supposed to see you anymore.
What? Why?
Who told you that?
Samuel.
He says you're not well.
Okay, that's bullshit.
He's a liar, and I'm fine.
I think you should go.
Look, I can't let you stay here.
It's not safe.
Cassandra is not a good person and neither is Samuel.
You don't have to come with me, but I need you to leave this apartment.
-No. -[liquid spills]
It's in the tea, isn't it?
You've been poisoning her the whole time, just like you poisoned Anabelle.
Don't be ridiculous.
It's just tea.
You saw me buy it, Melody.
That jar I saw you with in the elevator,
it was mold, wasn't it?
Where did you get it?
Please.
I need to take a sample to the doctor.
I need to help Anabelle.
Jess.
She's sick.
She's very, very sick.
You need a key.
[intense music playing]
[faint chanting]
[indistinct melodic chanting]
[melodic chanting intensifies]
[Melody gasps]
There you are.
[machine clicking]
[static crackling]
This room is--
[voice distorts]
Fuck.
Oh, shit.
[line ringing]
[Virgil] Dan.
Everything's infested with mold.
Mold?
Mold.
The deck, the tapes, everything.
Where the fuck did it come from? How did it get here?
Well, I… I don't know, Dan.
You were asked to be meticulous.
It's the same shit that was growing at the Visser, okay?
What is it doing here?
How is this possible?
Dan, are you currently experiencing a mental health emergency?
No.
'Cause I can send a professional there right now, assess--
I'm not experiencing a fucking mental health emergency.
If I remember right,
you requested more than one deck in your specs when…
we were setting the place up.
That means there should be a spare unit.
Did you look for the spare unit?
Because if you choose not to complete the job--
[phone beeps]
[squeaking]
What the fuck?
How did you get in here?
Ratty, don't eat that-- Okay.
Hey, hey, hey, Alicia.
So I thought I would go ahead and keep a video log,
because I want you to have proof of how much I fucking miss you.
Okay?
I don't know what's so top secret about digitizing shitty old soaps, but…
no visitors allowed.
Holy fuck, Ratty.
Okay, well, I'm gonna get to it.
Thomas Bellows.
So, Davenport has me keeping a journal
so he knows I'm watching all this shit
and I'm not missing anything.
You wouldn't believe how stupid these soaps are.
You know, it's all aliens and identical twins.
Hey, my handwriting,
it's really gonna improve, babe.
Huh? Not bad, right?
Anyway,
you are not gonna believe my love letters.
Okay, babe, I am about halfway through the tapes.
I just wish that I never had to sleep
because then I could be home faster.
I'm sorry about last night.
This… This job is sucking the life out of me.
But we are gonna have enough
to pay off our student loans.
We're gonna have everything.
Tommy B. loves you, Alicia Flores.
Babe, you gotta see this.
This guy…
This guy had some kind of a…
a DNA company that he shut down.
Wellspring.
Okay?
But it looks like a crock of shit to me.
I mean, I think it's just a big fucking front
for collecting personal data.
He's looking for someone, babe.
Who is he looking for?
And why the fuck is there blood in these refrigerators?
Look at this.
I know you think I'm paranoid, babe. You think I'm losing my shit.
But I just need to talk to you and you won't take my calls--
[trembling breath]
There is a face in the screen, and…
I'm… I'm not crazy.
I'm not crazy.
You see it?
It's in there.
It's watching me.
Fuck you and your tapes, Patricia.
What did you get up to?
[shouting] What did you get up to? Huh?
Fuck you!
What did you put in them?
What did you put in them? Huh?
Patricia.
[mouse clicking]
I'm retired now. I stay home and record things.
[fast forwards]
Soaps, honey.
But other things too. I record as much as I can.
Started out with a real nice Betamax,
and now I have two VHS machines, top of the line.
I feel like…
they have a message for me.
[telephone line ringing]
[Mark] This is Mark Higgins with Mystery Signals.
Please leave a detailed message
and I'll return your call as soon as possible.
[beeps]
Okay, look, um…
about Thomas Bellows…
Those tapes he was digitizing, the soaps,
they belong to that woman from the Visser.
The fucking Visser.
He said…
He said he thought he saw something in the tapes, some kind of face.
I think I saw it too.
At first I thought I was imagining it, but--
[call drops]
Fuck. Come on.
[woman] You find what you were looking for?
Davenport said you had a problem with the equipment?
That you needed a replacement deck?
I found it.
There was someone here before me.
What was he doing? What happened to him?
Don't make the same mistake.
Finish the job.
Take the money. Walk away.
And never look back.
How the fuck did you get in here?
You just take off in the middle of the day like that, professor?
There was an estate sale.
Well, where's George?
Had to let George go.
Huh.
Business is that good, huh?
What do you want, Mark?
I heard a rumor that
Evie Crest suffered a stroke last week.
Her son decided to strip the estate for its parts
and sell off Granddaddy's archive.
Newly excavated tapes and all.
Come on, Jill, I know you've got them.
Only reason you know about the Crest collection
is because of Dan's weird obsession with The Circle.
I went by the museum last week. They said he didn't work there anymore.
Yeah, he's out of town right now. [clears throat]
Where?
Sorry, that's classified.
It's not for sale. Especially not to you and your shitty podcast.
[clears throat] Listen,
Dan's never gonna forgive you for fucking the film festival guy,
even if you buy him this pony.
So you might as well
let me pay you for it.
Everybody wins.
[Jill] Apparently, William Crest was a real nutter.
He, uh, used to run with those Agape Lodge guys in Los Angeles,
dabbled in Mankind United, Theosophy, you name it.
But this stuff is different.
The papers he kept, they're all about some obscure cult based in New York City,
the Vos Society.
I did some digging. I couldn't find shit about them,
so they must have been short-lived and very obscure.
And I don't know how he stumbled on all this stuff in the first place, but…
he used all this research to write The Circle.
The scripts aren't bad.
The woman in the middle,
she's the ringleader.
Iris Vos.
Very Madame Blavatsky.
She came over from Europe after World War I,
made a fortune in textiles.
Evie Crest claimed that The Circle was inspired by a…
snuff film her father saw at some skull-and-bones party in the '40s.
Any chance that turned up too?
[Jill] It's a copy.
Someone ran a print and shot it with an 8-millimeter camera.
The footage was damaged to begin with, so the 8-mill made it double shit.
Can't see much.
[projector whirring]
Holy shit.
The estate tried to unload this on three other dealers first.
The rumor is…
this stuff is cursed.
The tapes, the books,
this film,
all of it.
Well then, today's your lucky day, because I'm…
gonna take it all off your hands.
[mysterious music playing]
Just finish the job.
Finish the fucking job.
There you are.
I came back this morning with coffee and croissants,
but, uh, you were already gone.
What the fuck was I doing in your apartment?
How did I get there?
What did you do to me?
You really don't remember?
You fainted.
It was awful. There was all that blood and I…
I didn't have a key to your apartment, so I carried you up to mine. I'm…
I am so sorry if I scared you.
I just didn't want to leave you on the street.
What is all this?
This… It's storage.
Well, it used to be storage before it flooded a few years ago.
Need to store something? John can get you a locker next door.
This.
What is this?
Wow, I don't… I don't know.
-It must be some kind of water damage. -Bullshit.
You've been sending Jess down here to scrape this shit off the walls.
You think I don't know about the drugs?
You think I don't know that Cassandra puts this in Jess's tea?
Or that it's in the paint that drove Anabelle insane?
What is it?
[chuckles]
I guess if I had to answer that, I would say it is, uh…
[faint chanting]
It's proof of our devotion.
It's a manifestation of the divine.
It's the matter of a shared universe.
Body and blood.
Let me show you something.
Melody, you have been searching for answers your whole life.
I have those answers if you're willing to listen.
[indistinct melodic chanting]
[Samuel] Let me show you.
Did you know that the Visser was built on the ruins of a mansion?
[melodic chanting]
It belonged to the Vos family.
[melodic chanting]
What…
What is that song?
It's not a song.
It's a prayer.
And I know that it's painful for you to hear.
That's how I knew that you were the one I was looking for.
That night,
at the opera.
[melodic chanting continues]
[Melody] "Entity known as Kaelego."
"Cited as both god and demon."
And just so you know,
I resent the word "cult."
We're pioneers.
Of the imagination.
We're voyagers.
[humming chant]
[Samuel] We're seers.
Was my mother one of your seers?
No.
I'm sorry, I never knew your mother.
She never lived at the Visser.
I sent the letter to the convent.
What?
I was hoping
that you would come looking for the thing you wanted most in the world.
And you did.
And Professor Turner was kind enough to…
to help me find you.
'Cause there aren't many of you out there.
Baldung.
I am so,
so very lucky that I found you.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
Melody.
Please.
Take heart
that this time,
we're going to succeed.
And the whole of time…
will be as one.
I don't know what that's supposed to mean.
It…
means that I am merely
a link in the chain.
[humming continues]
I'm a keeper of the flame.
What is that?
Yes, it's exactly the same space.
[gasps]
[gasping]
That's why you brought me here.
To slit my fucking throat.
No. No, no, no. Of course not.
We would never hurt you. We can't. We couldn't.
We can't.
You…
You are perfectly safe.
We have our volunteer.
Your human sacrifice.
Our vessel.
Capable of holding a whole new world
inside of them.
And everything is possible in this new world, Melody.
You will be reunited with her.
Your mother.
I promise.
Now open your mind.
Fuck you.
[Melody panting]
[sobs]
She was never here.
Get out. Get out.
Get the fuck out.
[suspenseful music playing]
"A vessel."
"Someone to hold a whole new world inside of them."
"A whole new world inside."
Do you think I could be more?
Than I am?
Like,
do I seem strong enough…
to hold a new world inside of me?
[exhales]
Oh, God.
Jess.
[banging on door]
Jess!
Erika!
Please, Jess, I need to talk to you.
They're not here.
What do you mean they're not here?
Where did they go?
Florida. They left last night.
That's a fucking lie.
I just saw her.
Jess!
[panting]
[camcorder beeps]
They took her.
They took Jess.
I told you, the sixth floor is off-limits.
Where is she?
-What the fuck did you do with her? -Don't know what you're talking about.
You fucking took her!
Jess! Jess, can you hear me?
[panting]
[whimpers]
Melody, Jess is gone.
No.
You're a fucking liar.
I'm not gonna let you do this to her.
I'm not going to let you do this.
Let's just go find someplace quiet where we can talk.
Fuck you.
Melody Pendras? We need you to come with us.
-Get the fuck away from me. -Who are you? What are you doing?
-Sir, I need you to step back. -No.
Please find me. Please find me. Please find me.
Please find me. Please help.
Melody, you need to come with us.
Fuck you.
[Samuel] Hey, get your hands off of me!
What… What are you doing here?
What the fuck are you doing here?
Everything's gonna be fine.
No. No! No!
No, let me go!
-No, stop! Stop! Let me go! -Melody, it's fine. We're gonna find you.
-No! Get off me! -Melody, you're gonna be fine.
Get the fuck off me!
[machine clicks]
[tape rewinds]
[rhythmic whooshing]
[static crackles]
[distorted snarl]
[low growl]
What the fuck?
[snarling]
[snarling continues]
[glass cracking]
[loud snarling]
[panting]
[grunts]
[faint chanting]
[wrench clangs]
[indistinct melodic chanting]
[melodic chanting]
[indistinct whispering]
[indistinct overlapping voices]
[Melody on screen] Who's there?
Do you hear that?
[Anabelle] You'd be lost without me.
[Melody] Purgatory and carnage.
Quite the combination.
[indistinct voices]
[Melody] Who's there?
But it's been eating me alive my whole life.
I just…
If there's any chance that she's here, I need to find her.
I don't care if she doesn't wanna see me.
I need to know who I am.
Please help. Please find me.
[thuds]
[mysterious music playing]