Archaeologists in Maine, USA led by the fanatical Dr. Joseph Lesham (Hill Harper) unearth a mysterious underground ruin, triggering a mystical pulse that reaches all the way to Stonehenge at Salisbury Plain, in Southwest England. Suddenly, the ancient monoliths rearrange themselves and zap dead a group of terrified tourists. The electro-magnetic pulse triggers a series of global earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, spurring Jacob (Misha Collins), a once respected scientist now reduced to hosting a radio show about freaky phenomena, to journey to Stonehenge where the military have assigned Dr. John Trousdale (Peter Wingfield) and Dr. Kaycee Leeds (Tori Higginson) and their team to fathom what is going on. At first the others scoff at Jacob’s outlandish theories, but he eventually convinces Leeds that Stonehenge is an ancient machine intent on terraforming the planet, wiping out human civilisation to start anew.
Another cheesy, made-for-TV movie from the Sci-Fi Channel - who, for reasons known only to network executives, have rechristened themselves Syfy (?) To its credit, Stonehenge Apocalypse is driven by intriguing ideas rather than the usual substandard CGI monsters. Some of its concepts are reminiscent of those the ingenious Nigel Kneale wove into The Quatermass Conclusion (1979) and his heavily altered script for Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1983) including allusions to geomancy, druidic lore, and the idea of ancient superstructures housing electromagnetic energy.
While the core concept crafted by Sci-Fi TV movie veteran Paul Ziller - that the Earth has been pre-programmed into cycles of creation and destruction - is sufficiently interesting, the plot lurches into Erich von Daniken style ludicrousness once Lesham tries to foil efforts to save the world. Intending to forge a new utopian civilisation, he and the rest of his doomsday cultists steal the ancient electromagnetic device that could avert the apocalypse and use it to forge a gigantic, glowing pyramid in the middle of Maine. The film never really explains why a seemingly rational man like Lesham believes humanity deserves to be wiped out, but its pulp lunacy proves intermittently endearing.
The low budget means this lacks the scale necessary towards conveying a true sense of global peril. For example, the SWAT team sent to take down Lesham and his cult consists of just three cops. Still, for the most part Ziller makes inventive use of his limited resources with a fair number of arresting or suspenseful sequences. Sadly, his pseudo-scientific dialogue makes for less than scintillating human drama. Characters emote earnestly but remain colourless throwbacks to the kind of stiff science heroes found in lesser Fifties B-movies, while Ziller has a shaky grasp on his British setting (with several seemingly English scientists spouting strangely American idioms) and blithely slaughters many of the more sympathetic protagonists to inject some last minute thrills into the cluttered climax.
