The Next 365 Days is Netflix’s worst movie, Hot Sex Be Damned

It’s been so long since the days of staying up late at friends’ houses to see if we could spot anything on their cable box’s encrypted Playboy channel that I’d forgotten that softcore porn really is boring.

However, I was reminded of this when I watched Netflix The next 365 daysthe third film in a trilogy known as “Polish 50 shades of gray.” It’s by far the worst entry in a series that has produced fewer and fewer returns. That’s saying a lot considering the low point where it all began: a film that made headlines for how lewd the sex scenes were and how it glorified sexual violence, grooming and rape.

The first 365 days The film revolves around a Sicilian crime boss named Massimo (Michele Morrone) who kidnaps a Polish woman named Laura (Anna-Maria Sieklucka) and imprisons her for 365 days, during which time he promises to force her to fall in love with him. He terrorizes and sexually intimidates them until, lo and behold, one day they have kinky sex – which they then continue to do until the film ends. 365 days‘ Sex scenes were blushingly long, athletic and rough to the point that they went viral on TikTok; Viewers posted videos of themselves reacting to the sequences for the first time.

The film was obviously problematic, lending a dark tenor to its snickering popularity on social media. But it was also so over the top, soapy, and dreadfully acted that it became the kind of garbage we occasionally allow ourselves to shy away from.

There were many people who felt it was irresponsible for Netflix to give the film a sequel given the inciting nature of its violent sexual content. But there were more who weren’t surprised: the film was a hit. Of course, the streamer wanted to make new installments.

That first sequel only came out this spring, a little less than two years after the original film. Justified 365 days: This day, it revolved around, quite inexplicably, Massimo and Laura’s marriage and life as a married couple. Yes, the two with this background got married. There’s also a hot gardener, a secret identical twin, a bounty hunt, and a deadly shootout. The movie was horrifying — neither cheeky enough to play camp, nor salacious enough to be escapist — but at least it had those wild plot twists to grab your attention.

The next 365 days doesn’t have it at all.

The third outing, arriving just four months after the second, finds Laura in a love triangle and struggling to figure out what she wants from her life after finally realizing that her marriage to Massimo is toxic and unhealthy in almost every way . (Check this out!) Meanwhile, her crush on the aforementioned hot gardener, Nacho (Simone Sussina), intensifies. (This is that 365 days Cinematic Universe; Crushes present themselves as impressively aerobic sex in a cycle of about a dozen positions.) He takes advantage of Laura’s trust issues to hopefully drive her and Massimo apart.

As for hot love triangles, The next 365 days I can’t find a way to make this interesting. It’s a whole movie (almost two hours!) in which absolutely nothing happens.

On the one hand, it might seem pointless to seriously criticize this film, for which quality and serious attention were never an aim. Any accumulation could be seen as an attempt to shame anyone’s enjoyment of the film as a horny lark. Sometimes it’s just fun to watch hot people fuck. But that’s what’s so frustrating The next 365 days: It’s not fun at all. A movie that’s one of the most-watched titles on the world’s biggest streaming service because we’re all perverted looky-loos has nothing to do with being that much of a nap.

The film itself is less of a cohesive film and more a patchwork of cheesy montages set to cheesy pop ballads that could be described as “musical” at best. The sex scenes, while delightfully long and plentiful, are so twisted and lit that it’s impossible to really decipher what’s happening in the tangle of moaning bodies – and therefore, most disappointingly, getting genuinely aroused.

I would even go so far as to say that even wild sex becomes monotonous. But that would be a disservice to a surprise sequence towards the end of the film where Laura dreams of having a bisexual threesome with Massimo and Nacho. The actors make out a bit while lying topless on her. It was undeniably hot. boys kiss! We stand!

We’ve strayed far enough from the show’s eyebrow-raising Rapey origins to celebrate The next 365 days on its own terms, as a silly soap opera full of sex and nudity. If there’s one thing to get excited about, it’s getting more butts on TV. As someone who may have damaged his cornea trying to decipher what happened all those late nights so many years ago on those scrambled Playboy series, the fact that this franchise is on a streaming platform alongside seasons of service is available fuller house is the kind of progress I can stand behind. After all, we all strive for a better future for younger generations.

Am I asking about the moon here? All I want is to turn on my computer or TV and watch good looking people having passionate sex, photographed in a way that’s both hot and aesthetically pleasing.

Porn. Turns out I’m talking about porn.