Summary
- Colors of Evil: Red
keeps viewers on the edge of their seats with intense time jumps and suspenseful storytelling. - Lukasz may seem like the culprit, but the real killer of Monika’s murder turns out to be someone unexpected.
- An intimate advance gone wrong leads to Monika’s tragic demise, culminating in a surprising twist of events.
Murder mysteries are a dime a dozen, right? You can find them during any hour of the day while channel surfing or even if you’re flicking through the thousands of movies available on streaming. But you’ve probably never encountered something like Colors of Evil: Red. But, before we get into any details of this crime thriller, do know that this Netflix exclusive was actually adapted from author Małgorzata Oliwia Sobczak’s trilogy, and the sequel to this film is supposedly even grimmer, so be prepared to put your seatbelt on if you want to continue with this series.
While the Adrian Panek-directed movie has some really explicit traumatic shots that convey the intensity of the characters, the otherwise implied (and equally grisly) imagery throughout grabs fans of the genre and never lets go until the end. With that being said, Colors of Evil starts like a lot of other crime series – with a dead body that has “allegedly” washed up on shore.
Soon enough, we find out the deceased young woman’s name is Monika Bogucka, and she was a bartender in Tricity, Poland. But how did she go from serving drinks to becoming a corpse with her lips missing on a rocky beach? More importantly, who killed her? As prosecutor Leopold Bilski (played by White Courage’s Jakub Gierszal) steps carefully through Monika’s case, it becomes clear to the audience that many people around her when she was alive could be suspected of doing such a thing.
The Usual Suspects in Colors of Evil
First, there is a fellow bartender whom Monika hooks up with at the beginning of the movie so she can get the job. Apparently, he likes pain – that’s surely a wild card. There is also her gangster boyfriend, Waldemar Mila, who isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty for his boss, Lukasz Kazarski. While he does his best to shuffle Kazarski away from her when he can, the events of Colors of Evil show that he will also put her straight in the line of fire when Kazarski demands to see her.
Speaking of the club’s owner, crime thriller fans will see that this man is evil incarnate the moment they come across him. Besides being corrupt with his financial schemes, this tight-fitted, bald individual has not only killed other women but makes jewelry out of their body parts and has a very intricate torture room in his basement. We can’t forget about Monika’s good friend, Mario Dubiela. At the beginning of the movie, he accompanies her to the club and later seems to be enjoying himself with a girl around his arm. It couldn’t be him, right?
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Within the dust of bad murder mysteries lurks some great subversions which reinvent the genre and hook viewers with their characters and mysteries.
Colors of Evil: Red certainly entices viewers with its consistent and suspenseful time jumps. Within just the first five minutes, we are introduced to Monika and her flirtatious ways and then quickly transition to seeing her lifeless body being examined by investigators. This stylistic approach is used throughout the adaptation and certainly keeps viewers on the edge of their seats, nervously awaiting the arrival of her death.
Not only that, but fast-forward 15 minutes into the movie, and Bilski’s superiors have the case solved and shut. A similar case from over a decade ago led to the arrest of a man named Jakubiak. While in custody, the troubled individual leaps from a window and dies from the fall. What a way to go. But Bilski – the intrepid investigator that he is – does not believe this is the actual conclusion.
Lukasz Is Not the Killer in Colors of Evil: Red
Most fingers would point to the ruthless and vindictive criminal Lukasz. He is not only physically and sexually abusive to Monika (whom he uses as a play-thing when he demands it), but he is also shown to be much more sinister than first thought later on. When Bilski and his team are ready to take him down and bring an end to this mess, they do so by overtaking him at his home. They not only come across his nightmarish and disturbing torture dungeon, but they also find a bracelet – which is made up of past victims’ body parts.
When confronted in the interrogation room about this finding, he responds by laughing and rambling about a lighthearted folk tale. While Bilski is frustrated since the piece of evidence is not sending back any of Monika’s DNA, viewers are brought to their wits’ end as well – they desperately want to see this elusive killer brought to justice. The only thing is, as evil and nasty as Lukasz can be, he is not the one who ended Monika’s life.
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There are plenty of exciting crime thrillers from the past few years worth checking out, such as Holy Spider and and Emily the Criminal.
When Bilski sees Dr. Tadeusz Dubiela at his home (the forensic specialist who recorded Monika’s crime scene), audiences discover that his son is actually Mario. This is the same boy who is accompanying Monika into the club at the beginning of the film. A connection that complicates things, doesn’t it? Up until this point, Mario is a forgettable character, but the cloak begins to be unveiled with the half-crooked greeting he gives to Bilski. Sometime after this subtle foreshadowing, a flashback reveals that Monika went to her father and told him everything about what Lukasz had been doing to her.
Mario Is Responsible for Monika’s Death
Even though he cooperates with the twisted man in illegal business doings, Monika’s father tells her to leave and hide somewhere for a while – even he does not want to know where she goes. She ends up staying in a private cabin that Mario and his father own. With the coast being clear for now, Mario tries being intimate with Monika, but this goes fatally awry. He quickly grows frustrated when she denies his advances and bangs her head against the floor – unknowingly ending her life and bringing every viewer’s heartbeat to an abrupt stop.
After this climactic flashback, the plot moves fast, and all the suspense boils over. Mario’s father brings Monika’s mother to the same place, and he admits to being an accomplice (he cleans the cabin and arranges her body at the shore). At the same time, Bilski connects the dots when he remembers seeing Monika’s ring in Mario’s room and rushes to the cabin, knowing something is very wrong. Tadeusz ends up shooting himself in the head before he can be arrested or attacked, and Mario turns himself in. It looks like Monika’s killer was brought to justice after all, just not in the way anybody expected. Colors of Evil: Red is streaming now on Netflix.
