Richard Loncraine’s 1977 feature Full Circle (The Haunting of Julia) is one of the most perfectly realized and executed ghost stories ever made. From its striking and tragic opening scene to its jaw dropping final moment, Full Circle never once slips in its relatively brief 98 minute running time. It is a real masterpiece of style and class, and one of the great lost films of the seventies.

Full Circle started out life as a novel by famed writer Peter Staub entitled Julia. The book was a critical and popular success in the mid-seventies and remains one of Straub’s most loved works, which makes the film’s failure as a popular success even more mystifying.

The film marks one of the earliest screen adaptations for a Straub novel and one of the first credits for its distinguished director. Although he has had a relatively non-prolific career as a film director since his debut in the Mid Seventies, British born Richard Loncraine is one of modern cinema’s secret weapons; a director capable of producing masterful films in any genre with a rare mix of style and class.

Loncraine was born in Gloucestershire England just after the war in 1946. After studying to be a sculptor at the Central School of the Arts he became interested in film and attended the Royal College of Art Film School, where he quickly showed himself as a talent to watch.

Loncraine’s early career was spent mostly working for the BBC on commercials and television productions. 1974 would prove to be the turning point for the then 29 year old Loncraine when he co-scripted the children’s’ anthology Professor Popper’s Problem and directed the acclaimed short, Radio Wonderful. His work on these and his previous BBC experience led him to his first feature film, 1975’s Flame.

Flame underperformed slightly in 1975 but it received enough attention to garner Loncraine Full Circle. Nothing in Loncraine’s past would have suggested that he would have been the perfect director for a modern day ghost story, but his direction of Full Circle is astonishing in its conviction and power. Loncraine seemed to bring out the best in everybody, including lead actress Mia Farrow and composer Colin Towns; both of whom would delivery career best work under Loncraine’s direction.

At the heart of Full Circle is a relatively simple and tragic story centering on a child’s death and a mother’s breakdown. Shelia Benson pointed out in her great original review that the film can be read as a study of a young woman slowly but surely losing her mind, or it can be taken as a superior ghost story. Either way, the film remains a very haunting exercise in loss, revenge and fear.

It is this sense of loss occupying every frame of Full Circle that separates it from most films that fall into the thriller or horror genre. Mia Farrow’s work as the lonely and isolated Julia is frankly astounding, and Loncraine’s long takes of her alone in her house or out walking are shockingly intimate. It is due to Loncraine’s sensitive direction of Farrow that makes the film so incredibly resonate, and it works not only as a ghost story but as one of the great character studies in all of seventies genre cinema.

The film is remarkably singular on many levels. It is, on the one hand, a rather old fashioned and slow moving work that builds carefully and methodically. On the other hand it is very much a film that only the late seventies could have produced, made by a group of young relatively inexperienced people who were obviously filled with invention and creativity.

While the film marks career bests for Loncraine, Farrow and composer Colin Towns, that shouldn’t overshadow that much of its power is due to the cinematography by Peter Hannan, the editing of Ron Wiseman and the striking production design of Brian Morris.

Hannan had worked with Loncraine on his first film, and his work on Full Circle is really noteworthy. Even on the washed out VHS copy, you can see how beautifully photographed this film is. Hannan’s striking, dreamlike work would serve him well on future projects with Loncraine as well as the legendary Nicolas Roeg. Editor Ron Wiseman, whose cutting gives Full Circle’s more intense scenes a real sense of dread and power, had previously worked on the strange 1973 Canadian production THE PYX and his work here is really splendid.

Perhaps the most striking behind the scenes effort is given by production designer Brian Morris. Julia’s house is especially memorable with its high ceilings, spiraling staircases and Gothic feel. Just look at the details Morris contributes to the work especially how children’s toys seem to be everywhere in the film, a clever design choice that reminds viewers constantly of the loss at the heart of the film. Morris would use this striking eye in later work with Loncraine and on memorably designed productions ranging from Pink Floyd The Wall to Angel Heart.

The real heart of the film lies with Colin Towns’ incredible score; one of the great marriages between image and music in all of modern film. Outside of being one of the finest soundtrack albums ever released, Towns’ work also stands as some of the most memorable electronic music of the seventies and it gives the film one of the most ingenious sound schemes imaginable.

Towns was born just a few years after World War Two in Britain and began taking piano lessons at a very young age. Throughout his late teens and twenties he would do a variety of session work before landing a spot in the Ian Gillian band. It was while working in Gillian’s band that Towns began to work in his spare time on the themes that eventually wound up in Full Circle.

In front of the camera, the film is controlled by Farrow and the film is unthinkable without her. As the title character, who in the first scene watches her only child choke to death, Mia gives a complicated and fearless performance that is among the greatest in all of genre film. Looking just like she did as Rosemary Woodhouse ten years earlier in Roman Polanski’s classic shocker, Farrow’s Julia is an ambiguous and haunting creation. It is one of the great performances of the seventies and, along with Rosemary’s Baby and the later Hannah and Her Sisters, is Farrow’s finest moment.

Joining the magical Farrow is a very distinguished cast featuring some of the best British actors of the period. These include a young Tom Conti, a creepy Keir Dullea and a great Jill Bennett.

Young Samantha Gates, in her film debut, plays the ghostly Olivia incredibly well and it is unfortunate that she only appeared in a handful of films afterwards. Also worth noting is popular British actress Sophie Ward, who makes one of her first on screen appearances as Julia’s daughter Kate, the child who tragically chokes to death in the film’s haunting opening.

Full Circle seemed to be cursed distribution wise from the get go and it remains relatively little seen, despite being a favorite to many genre fans and garnering Loncraine the grand prize at the Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival. The film should have cemented his reputation as one of the great British directors of the seventies, but the distribution problems made the it take nearly five years to be seen outside of British and some European markets.

Used copies of the full frame VHS version can be found on online, and a French DVD is available and while it does finally feature a widescreen print of the film it is unfortunately so dark that it is an eyesore to watch. Full Circle remains, much like the ghost Olivia, very much lost in time right now.

Full Circle is a really superb and finely crafted work that has been tragically undervalued since it appeared briefly in theaters in 1978. With once lost works like Let’s Scare Jessica to Death and Lemora now on DVD, Full Circle remains the great lost English language genre film from the seventies…seek it out and submit to its majestic and oh so haunting power.

Jeremy Richey is a student at W.K.U. who earned his English Degree and is working towards another in History. He has a lifelong interest in film and music and writes daily on his favorites at mooninthegutter.blogspot.com

He also has a side project dedicated to the neglected career of Nastassja Kinski at nostalgiakinky.blogspot.com Visit him at www.myspace.com/jeremy_richey