Circle (Aaron Hann & Mario Miscione, 2015)

50 people representing a broad swathe of society wake up standing in a circle in a black room, and find that not only can they not leave their spots, but that one of them will die every two minutes. Then they come to understand, even as their numbers dwindle, that they can all vote for the next to die.
The nefarious premise is incredibly simple, and leads to all kinds of possibilities, most of which the script explores with gusto even if not always with finesse: racial and sexual differences come out, political factions form and the motives for altruism get questioned almost as often as selfishness is exposed. It's rough around the edges, but the sheer premise and what it gets right in the taut execution nevertheless make for quite edge-of-the seat viewing.

6/10