By
some measures, Agatha Christie’s And Then
There Were None is the seventh best-selling novel of all time. Therefore,
you can’t blame filmmakers for coming back to it, even though René Clair’s 1945
film is pretty definitive. Both Mario Bava and the Detective Conan anime franchise memorably riffed on it. In the
latter case, the basic structure was adapted to a high school setting well
before Gretchen McNeil’s teen novel. There are infinitely superior And Then There Were Nones, but it is
strangely satisfying to watch the obnoxious teens get slaughtered in Chris
Robert’s Ten: Murder Island (trailer here), based on McNeil's novel (and Christie's, by extension), which premieres
on Lifetime this Saturday.
How
many guests do you suppose were lured to a party on a remote island? In this
case, they are students from three rival high schools, all of which Claire
briefly attended before her untimely suicide. Instead of U.N. Owen, they
thought they were invited by one of the most popular girls in their overlapping
social circles, but it is quickly apparent they have been had.
Since
there is no direct accusation, the shallow, entitled kids will have to figure
out their situation on their own. Naturally, suspicion quickly falls on earnest
Meg, because she is probably the slightest of stature of the whole bunch. She
also happens to have the highest capacity for empathy and deductive reasoning.
As a result, the killer leaves her illuminating pages ripped from poor Claire’s
diary after each murder. The unknown subject also keeps a more conspicuous
tally in red paint for the other idiots on the island.
As
you would expect from millennials, all ten guests are dumber than a bag of
hammers and none of them has read And
Then There Were None. At least China Anne McClain is generally likable and
sympathetic as Meg. Within the ensemble, Annie Q (who was terrific in Cardinal X) is the most likely to break
out big. This won’t be the film to do it, but the catty edge she brings as
rebound girlfriend Kumiko helps make the film watchable. Katya Martin is also
quite effective as the bullied Claire in flashback scenes. Alas, the rest of the
ensemble is either blandly forgettable or prone to excessive overacting or just
plain dead before we can make a fair evaluation.
Christie’s
basic premise is so insidiously compelling, it takes perverse effort to screw
it up. Clair’s version is a classic and 1965’s Ten Little Indians with Shirley Eaton and the voice of Christopher
Lee on the gramophone is nearly as good. The 1974 desert-bound incarnation with
Oliver Reed and Charles Aznavour also holds up nicely. Even a 1959 TV
production with Nina Foch has some merit. They are all better than Ten: Murder Island.
