Colors of Evil: Black

SECRETS OF “COLORS OF EVIL: BLACK”: CASTLES, FOXES, AND NETFLIX’S UNLIKELIEST HIT

Netflix’s Polish crime saga Colors of Evil: Black may look like pure on-screen misery, but behind the camera it’s a sleek, carefully engineered machine: real castles, real towns, and a director obsessed with making the landscape as menacing as the crimes. Here’s the juiciest real-world intel tied to Adrian Panek’s 2026 thriller.

SHOOTING IN A REAL-LIFE GHOST STORY: CASTLES, CHURCHES & TINY TOWNS

• The sequel was shot entirely in Poland, with principal photography centered in September and October 2025, just months before its June 10, 2026 worldwide Netflix drop.
• Instead of building sets, Panek dragged cast and crew through an atmospheric tour of the country:
• Gniew Castle (Hotel Gniew Castle), a genuine 14th‑century Gothic fortress overlooking the Vistula, doubles as one of the film’s key eerie backdrops. No CGI castle, no volume stage — just actual stone and centuries of history looming over every shot.
• The production took over Gniew’s Market Square and the City and Commune Office at Plac Grunwaldzki, turning mundane administrative buildings into ominous institutions full of secrets.
• Scenes of rural dread were filmed in genuine small settlements like Wiślany, Gostomia, Kościelna Wieś, and Zamkowa Wola, chosen for their quiet, almost timeless feel.
• The creepy small‑town vibe? It’s not just acting. Local residents in Gniew were used as background extras, so when you see villagers lurking at the edges of the frame, you’re staring at actual locals drafted into Panek’s nightmare.

BILSKI RETURNS: THE DIRECTOR, HIS PROSECUTOR, AND THEIR BLEAK LOVE STORY

• Colors of Evil: Black is Adrian Panek’s own script, adapted from Małgorzata Oliwia Sobczak’s bestselling novel in the “Colors of Evil” series. That means no Hollywood “polish,” just a director leaning fully into Polish darkness.
• Panek reunited with Jakub Gierszał as prosecutor Leopold Bilski, making him the through‑line of the franchise after Colors of Evil: Red.
• Critics note Gierszał’s performance as the film’s anchor, described as a “cold, commanding intensity” that sells Bilski as a man who’s seen too much and trusts no one.
• Reviews point out that Panek’s big stylistic choice this time is to lean into even grimmer, more devastating territory than Red, both in tone and imagery. The Polish countryside is shot like an accomplice — beautiful, but absolutely not to be trusted.

THE FOXES, THE VIOLENCE & THE SCENE EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT

• One of the most talked‑about sequences involves pet foxes and a burst of shocking violence. Viewers and reviewers repeatedly call out this moment as particularly disturbing, saying it feels “reckless and insensitive” given the subject matter.
• According to coverage of the production’s approach, Panek and his team “prioritized depicting actual violence over glamorized action,” avoiding stylized fight choreography in favor of messy, upsetting brutality.
• That philosophy bleeds into audience reactions: Reddit threads and reviews describe the film as “extremely dark and disturbing,” with the violence coming in sudden, nasty spikes that stick in your memory long after the case is closed.

NETFLIX’S SLEEPER POWERHOUSE: HOW A POLISH THRILLER WENT GLOBAL

• Quietly, Colors of Evil: Black did what many Hollywood thrillers can’t: it topped global Netflix charts. One industry write‑up reports it became one of Netflix’s two biggest movies in the world for the week, pulling in 14.1 million views and sharing the podium with The Marked Woman.
• Critics are split on the story mechanics, but almost everyone agrees on two things:
• The cinematography is “gorgeous” and “gloomy”, turning every road, field, and shoreline into a crime scene waiting to happen.
• The cast — including Marianna Zydek, Andrzej Chyra, Beata Ścibakówna, and Adam Bobik alongside Gierszał — is repeatedly praised as stronger than the script they were handed, elevating material some reviewers called “predictable” or “confused”.
• The film’s success also cements Sobczak’s novel series as a bona fide screen franchise: after Red (2024) opened the door, Black proved there’s serious international appetite for grim Polish crime tales with morally rotten towns at their center.

THE FANDOM AFTERMATH: BLEAK ENDINGS & WHO’S REALLY TO BLAME

• The ending has become its own mini‑phenomenon. Major outlets and fan forums alike published “ending explained” breakdowns, dissecting what the town was hiding, who’s truly guilty, and what Bilski can never fix, even after solving the case.
• Discussion threads point out uncomfortable details — like who gets punished and who doesn’t — and argue over whether the film is secretly less about a single culprit and more about a community‑wide rot that no prosecutor can clean up.

So no tabloid‑ready on‑set fistfights or cheating scandals here — instead, Colors of Evil: Black delivers its drama the old‑fashioned way: with real castles, real villagers, ugly violence, and a prosecutor who looks like he’d rather be anywhere else… but can’t stop digging.