50 Films and TV Shows Reached this Year! – Black Island

That’s right – in between all of the COVID bullcrap and study and mental meltdowns, I found the time to watch 50 new movies and TV shows released in Australia in 2021. Some were excellent, some were meh, some were ungodly terrible (like the 50th one I’m about to discuss). They were a diverse palette of Australian, American, Chinese and European films, mainly sourced from Netflix, which I’m glad to have watched as learning experiences at least.

Our 50th film is Black Island, a German bunny-boiler type film that is sometimes stunning in how aggressively awful it is. What I mean by aggressively awful is that this film so often achieves the opposite of what it wants – when it wants hot romance, it induces groans, and when it wants thrilling tension, it produces gales of laughter. Above all, I didn’t even realise it took place on an island at all until the very end, which is…odd.

Black Island takes place on a German island (which I thought was a country town until the end where they finally get an establishing shot of the whole island) where a young man in high school, grieving the death of his parents and grandmother, finds solace in his attractive German teacher. One thing leads to another, and then it leads to blood, and then it leads to more stuff, and then something explodes or something.

On paper, this sounds like a porno because it probably already is, but it tries to further its dramatic heft in the middle of another high-school romance subplot with a fellow student, and then a murder mystery. Between that and the weird relationship at the centre, this is a movie with a ton of padding, surprising considering that it’s only 100 minutes long.

Putting aside the creepiness of the main plot (which I’ll get to, don’t worry), the biggest problem with this film is its editing and structure. It begins so abruptly with a woman being attacked by a dog (which is the nicest looking dog ever – hell, its mean barks replaced with ADR as it probably squeaked on set), then 2 minutes later a hilarious car crash, then none of that is relevant to the film for 80 minutes. If you had cut that out, then the film would feel considerably more natural.

After another 90 minutes of wobbly padding and slow scenes of nothing where major plot points are forgotten and skipped over, the movie just ends on one of the least conclusive final shots I’ve ever seen. It’s like the ending to a bad slasher movie, but without the killer money shot and layered on with European pretension.

And again, I’ve mentioned the fact that I didn’t even know they were on a goddamn island! They say that “yeah, this island is weird”, but we never see it in isolation, we just see wide shots of a town that looks like it’s next to a lake or something. It looks like Williamstown in Melbourne, not an island. And why is it called “Black Island” in the title anyway? Only 2 people from it were evil and this is the first criminal incident on this island ever.

Walk into a pond to get a wet shirt, then walk straight out. Classic Michael Bay tactic.

Then there’s the music…my god, the music.

During every awful sex scene, there’s a pop song like “Fever” playing over it, which makes those scenes raucous in a 50 Shades sort of sense. In between those, it feels like you’re playing an Uncharted or Arkham game in the back of the house and watching the movie at the same time, even during quiet dramatic scenes. Frankly, it’s the worst musical choice they could have made, but if they’d doubled down on the silliness of the score, it would make this movie much more convincing as a dark comedy.

Now the central premise – a teacher gaslighting a student into a sexual relationship. In no context is this ever okay even in university, so any of the people who found out in the film (a lot of people) would call the police immediately and the main character would be taken in for counselling in real life – hell, he would call the police immediately (this is Germany, after all – they’re pretty forward about sexual boundaries). Of course, that doesn’t happen, so much convenience follows.

The situations that follow from the moment the teacher enters the scene are so contrived and stupid that if you scored the scenes with bizarre comedy music, it would fit snugly. Add in the laughable sex scenes, the terrible opening and abrupt ending, and maybe change up a few elements to up the funny, and you’d have what would happen if Adam Sandler’s That’s My Boy was actually good.

Insert comedy music here.

The only real praise I can give this movie is that the actors are somehow so committed to these trite roles that the movie enters a semi-level of conviction at points. Some of the cinematography is nice – I’m struggling to find more.

Readers, I strongly recommend that you do not watch this film at all. It’s not funny enough to warrant a laugh watch, or compelling enough to be a typical bunny-boiler thriller. It’s just bad.

I’m giving Black Island a D.

Let’s squeeze in another 25 more films before the end of the year, shall we?