With this past summer’s Heartstopper Forever bringing the teen romance of Nick Nelson & Charlie Spring to its oh-so-satisfying conclusion, it seems like breakout star Joe Locke is ready to jump into a more mature new phase of his career.
Image: Image Credit: ‘Black Church Bay,’ The Bureau
By Cameron Scheetz
He’s already got a few adult-oriented projects lined up, including starring opposite Andrew Scott in Elsinore—the biopic of closeted actor Ian Charleson (which is already gaining Oscar buzz)—and allegedly the sci-fi flick Baby, in which he’ll apparently play a sex worker who gets impregnated by a mysterious creature? Sounds wild!
But just as intriguing is an upcoming mystery-thriller called Black Church Bay, which we first reported on last September as production was wrapping up on the stunning Isle Of Anglesey off the northern coast of Wales.
What we knew then was that the film comes from out writer-director Rhys Marc Jones, and has the following synopsis: “In a remote Welsh coastal village, the disappearance of an openly-gay sixth form student disrupts the delicate balance of local life for one deputy head teacher, exposing long-buried secrets and threatening to tear the community apart.”
Context clues told us that Locke would be playing said “sixth form student” (the equivalent of being a junior or senior in the U.K. high school system), while the “deputy head teacher” would be played by Tom Cullen, a handsome Welsh actor best known to the gays for his role in queer romance Weekend.
And now, ahead of Black Church Bay‘s world premiere at a pair of film festivals this October, we have first-look photos and even more details that highlight why this might be one of the most anticipated and controversial movies of the year…
Not only is Cullen’s Barry a teacher, he’s specifically the teacher of Locke’s Jasper. Against their better judgement, the two sneak away for a weekend on a boat where things get intimate, but when Jasper vanishes—did he accidentally fall into the water and drown, or is there something more sinister at play?—a manhunt begins for his whereabouts, gradually closing in on Barry.
Whether or not Barry is actually guilty is one thing, though if he does come forward with what he knows to try to clear his name, it would still cost him his career and jeopardize his livelihood. Things get even more tense when Jasper’s boyfriend & fellow classmate Miles (newcomer Dylan Michael) becomes suspicious of Barry, wondering just how close the two were.
In other words, Black Church Bay wades into some morally murky waters. Though the fact that Locke’s Jasper is a sixth-form student means he’s at least 16—the legal age of consent in the U.K.—his affair with his teacher still crosses plenty of taboo lines, and the internet’s been quick to point out that what’s ultimately happening here is grooming.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the film itself is problematic, but rather a tense and challenging one that asks its audience to sit in the perspective of a character whose own shame and repression has led him down a thorny path. Barry is very much depicted as being in the wrong and he’ll likely have to face the consequences of his actions, which the trailer show quite clearly.
That is to say: If it actually still existed. Curiously, the first trailer for Black Church Bay briefly appeared online this week before disappearing (almost) completely, leaving many fans perplexed. Was this some kind of meta marketing stunt, that the teaser clip would vanish, not unlike Locke’s character? Highly doubtful.
More likely is the fact that somebody somewhere hit “publish” before they were supposed to.
It was previously announced that Black Church Bay was to world premiere October 15 at the BFI London Film Festival, though it was also just unveiled as part of the lineup of South Korea’s Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) which runs Oct. 6-15, meaning it’d technically premiere there first. The BIFF site also includes a “play” button for the film’s trailer, though when you click it you get a “video unavailable” message saying it was removed by the uploader. We don’t mean to point fingers; we’re just saying there’s obviously still a few things getting sorted for the film’s roll-out.
Regardless, Black Church Bay remains very high on our must-watch list, and we’ll be eager to watch the trailer when it officially drops online. So stay tuned, because we’ll be sure to let you know when it does!
Source: https://www.queerty.com/the-trailer-for-joe-lockes-scandalous-new-movie-dropped-then-disappeared-what-happened-20260904/
