TW: Grooming
Joe Locke has spent years winning over audiences as Charlie Spring, the sweet, anxious, endlessly lovable teenager at the heart of Heartstopper. But Locke has already shown that he is more than capable of stepping outside Charlie’s cardigan-clad world. His turn as William Kaplan and Billy Maximoff, also known as Wiccan, in Marvel’s Agatha All Along proved he could handle something much darker and more complicated.
Now, Locke is going somewhere even more unsettling.
A Very Different Joe Locke
In the upcoming psychological mystery-thriller Black Church Bay, Locke plays Jasper, an openly gay 17-year-old sixth-form student whose disappearance sends shockwaves through a remote Welsh coastal village. Adapted from Elizabeth Day’s 2017 novel of the same name, the film centers on a deeply controversial relationship between Jasper and Barry, a deputy head teacher in his 40s, played by Tom Cullen.
And if the trailer is anything to go by, this is not going to be an easy watch.
The premise is deceptively simple: Jasper disappears after secretly spending a weekend away with Barry on a boat. When Jasper goes missing, or potentially drowns, suspicion falls heavily on the teacher, who cannot adequately account for what happened.
But this is a mystery, which means the real question is not simply where Jasper went.
It is what happened before he disappeared.
@nickcharlie.edits Watching the trailer for Joe Locke’s new movie completely altered my brain chemistry 🫠🖤 It’s called Black Church Bay and it looks insane. Are we even ready to see Joe’s dark side? 🫣. #joelocke #heartstopper #kitconnor #lgtb #nickandcharlie @Joe Locke
The Trailer Raises More Questions Than Answers
The first look at Black Church Bay is already uncomfortable. It shows Jasper and Barry sneaking away aboard a yacht, with the relationship becoming intimate before the teenager ultimately vanishes.
That setup makes the film’s exploration of power, secrecy, manipulation, and grooming particularly difficult and unsettling.
Rather than treating the relationship as a straightforward forbidden romance, the story appears positioned to examine the enormous imbalance of power between an adult teacher and a teenage student, while asking what happens when a seemingly idyllic community is forced to confront the secrets hiding beneath its surface.
That gives Locke a particularly challenging role. Jasper is not simply the mysterious missing boy at the center of a whodunit. His relationship with Barry sits at the heart of the film’s tension, making the circumstances surrounding his disappearance all the more disturbing.
Locke Is Entering His Dark Era
Written and directed by Rhys Marc Jones, Black Church Bay looks like a significant departure from the roles that first made Locke a household name among LGBTQ+ audiences.
And honestly, we are intrigued.
The film will screen at this year’s London Film Festival on October 15 and 17, with tickets going on sale September 17.
Locke is also appearing in the festival’s opening film, Elsinore, a biopic about Scottish actor Ian Charleson, played Andrew Scott. The film follows Charleson’s final months as he prepares to take on Hamlet at the National Theatre.
From lovable teen romance to Marvel magic to a disturbing disappearance, Locke’s career is becoming increasingly difficult to predict. And with Black Church Bay, that unpredictability may be exactly what keeps us watching.