The Next 365 Days (2022) – Let The Pain End

Released: 19th August
Seen: 20th August

Two years ago the world stared in genuine shock and awe as the atrocious rape-romanticisation known as 365 Days was unleashed onto an unsuspecting public. It was, and remains, one of the worst films of the last 10 years with atrocious dialogue, performances, plot and just about everything else that one could imagine. 

Its plot about a gangster who kidnaps a woman and basically fucks her into loving him was repugnant and heinous, but it was so undeniably awful that it practically memed a sequel into existence. That sequel came out in April of this year and it was also quite awful, possibly even worse than the first movie because at least the first movie had something resembling an actual plot… well, now here we are in August and they just shit out the third part of this franchise and lord have mercy I hope this means it’s finally fucking over.

The Next 365 Days picks up not too long after the events of the last movie, a movie that ended with our main character Laura (Anna-Maria Sieklucka) being shot and seemingly killed by the identical twin brother of our other main character Massimo (Michele Morrone). Well surprise, turns out that Laura isn’t dead and in fact is perfectly fine despite the large stomach wound she suffered at the end of the last movie. 

So, instead of dying, which would’ve meant I didn’t have to suffer through this and everyone would’ve been much happier, Laura and Massimo continue their relationship which is full of occasionally acknowledging each other with words and rampant fucking (including, rather hilariously, a moment where Massimo points out that Laura still needs time to heal from the whole BEING SHOT IN THE FUCKING STOMACH thing and then 2 minutes later, balls deep banging against a table) and also the new man from the last movie Nacho (Simone Susinna) to make things complicated for Laura. 

What complaints can even be made at this point, it’s not like this series has the sudden potential to become good and they literally filmed The Next 365 Days movie back to back with the 365 Days: This Day (It’s why they could release them so close together) so there really is no chance for them to actually improve here. 

Is The Next 365 Days horrifically written? Yes, the very few lines of dialogue we get between the uninteresting sex montages are very bad and the plot is basically just “What if we did the second movie again but with less stakes near the end?”. 

Is The Next 365 Days blandly filmed? Yes, the film is just incredibly lucky to be filmed in a very beautiful part of the world with actors who are conventionally attractive enough that at least it doesn’t make you want to gouge your eyes out. 

Is the music still awful? God yes, though at least it does become funny when they just play song after song with no dialogue to break it up because at least The Next 365 Days gets that it has no business trying to do anything of substance at all.

Are the characters all still dull and borderline indistinguishable from each other? Oh god yes, thank heavens for Michele Morone’s tattoos making him stand out otherwise you might not even know who the leads are meant to be. These aren’t characters, they’re human-sized Barbie dolls that a demented sadist is slamming together in an attempt to simulate the sex act without actually knowing why people have sex.

But don’t worry, somehow The Next 365 Days has found new ways to suck, starting with that damn bullet hole. There are soap operas that treat the maiming of major characters with more gravitas than this. The trauma of that attempted murder is just non-existent, it’s like they just forgot about it happening and hope the audience does too… I guess they’re lucky that the films are so bad that it’s very easy to forget that kind of detail. 

Throw on top of that just completely throwing out any sense of narrative cohesion. Sure the last two movies weren’t great when it came to their plots but you could almost follow them. You got what they were trying to do when it came to their narrative and could explain the full plot if a gun was held to your head (though in my case I would probably just yell “PULL THE TRIGGER YOU COWARDS” but that’s just me). No chance of understanding the narrative this time, it’s all over the place with a fashion show, Nacho’s return, references to the lost baby from the end of the first movie and an ending that might be trying to be a cliffhanger but really should just be thrown off the cliff. It jumps around without any real sense of momentum, it doesn’t tell an actual story that’s worth telling.

Without any narrative to grab onto, The Next 365 Days falls straight into the pattern that we have come to loathe. Short scene of ‘talking’ followed by a sex scene that lasts the exact length of one of the songs on the soundtrack, repeated for two straight hours until you feel the will to live slowly fading. The dialogue is flat and uninteresting and the sex scenes are still a little more raunchy than most other films, but just so unerotic that it’s laughable. There’s maybe one mildly interesting scene where Laura’s choice between Nacho and Massimo is depicted as a dream where she has a three-way with them and the two of them end up making out so they at least tried something different… but different doesn’t mean interesting or worthwhile. 

Shock of all shocks, The Next 365 Days is also complete shit, just like the two movies that came before it. It’s not well written, the story is not well told, the sex scenes are so numerous that they eventually just become establishing shots with nipples and no one is even remotely likeable. Somehow this film franchise started with a mobster kidnapping a woman and ended with making both of them just as bad as each other. There are already rumblings that maybe if The Next 365 Days does well there might be a 4th… fucking hell no, please god no, no no no, let the suffering end. Let this franchise die, let these actors go do something that might actually let them use some of their talents, let my people go!