What could go wrong when you send a group of elite soldiers skilled in warfare to an island in the middle of nowhere to extract a VIP? Well! Everything could go wrong, and Philippe Martinez’s 2023 action flick, Black Noise, explores such a scenario. A team of skilled soldiers took up a new task, thinking it would be a simple find-and-extract job. Little did they know the enemies they were going to face there would take more than just bullets to kill.
It all began with Ryan (Wayne Gordon) receiving a call from his superiors while he was enjoying his holiday in St. Martin with his team. His squad included Naomi (Ashton Leigh), Leila (Sadie Newman), Leo (Jackson Rathbone), and Jordan. Unfortunately, his superiors wanted Ryan to cancel his holiday and make preparations to extract a target of high value from an exclusive island. The island wasn’t for everyone. It was exclusively reserved for those with deep pockets and power. The island was called Esperanca, and it was inhabited by more than 1000 people, even at its most crowded. It housed a couple of resorts, small hotels, and mansions owned by the rich and powerful. They all pay a ton of money to keep this island hidden from the world. Therefore, Ryan and his team had no idea where they were headed.
Spoilers Ahead
Who Is The Secret VIP? How Did She Die?
Ryan and his team planned to arrive on the island dressed as tourists. The reason was simple: not to draw too much attention to themselves. The HVT they were to extract was Laura Hamilton, widow of tech billionaire Lloyd Hamilton. After her husband was assassinated, she fled to Esperanca and made the island her safe haven. Now, after a year, she has activated her emergency beacon for reasons unknown. Ryan and his team found the island to be entirely deserted. That shouldn’t have been the case, as according to the intelligence they received, the island was crawling with the rich and affluent. It appeared that everyone had just vanished into thin air, leaving their belongings behind. There were clothes, but no people. Plus, everyone was startled by a loud noise when one of the soldiers touched a piece of clothing, which, for some reason, escaped Ryan’s ears.
These noises preyed on everyone’s mind except Jordan, and they saw things that they had long forgotten. After scanning the island for a while, the group found Hamilton hiding inside a bathroom. She was scared to the core and was talking gibberish. Her ears were bleeding, and she had gone deaf, not being able to hear anything. When she was questioned about what happened to the people on the island, she had no clear answer. The light took everyone, Hamilton said. Trouble escalated when Hamilton was shot while they were trying to leave the mansion. They tried to figure out where the shot came from, but there wasn’t a single soul except them. Unfortunately, Hamilton had lost too much blood and died.
How Did Leila Die? What Flashbacks Are Others Experiencing?
Since their boat was missing, the group was stranded on the island. While everyone was on the beach, thinking about their next move, Leila experienced those noises again. The noises forced her to recall her most haunting memories. In reality, when Leila was a kid, she almost drowned at sea. The noises then forced Leila to shoot herself in the head. Leila wasn’t the only one seeing things. Everyone was forced to confront a haunting memory from their past. Leo had been hearing the voice of his abusive father, who used to beat him up as a kid. Naomi saw Samuel, her husband, who died years ago. As for Ryan, his ears were met with the sound of children screaming and drowning. Since they had no idea what that noise was, they made assumptions. Some said it was the Russians’ doing, while others claimed it was some advanced technology by the Chinese. None of them had a clear idea about what they were experiencing. Jordan claimed the noises were a byproduct of some machines installed on the island. Cut the power to the island, and the machine would fail, Jordan said. Unfortunately, on the way, Ryan was blown to bits by an invisible creature. Before his death, he once again saw the same little girl he had been seeing ever since he walked onto the island.
How Did Naomi And Leo Meet Their End?
Even though there was a total communication blackout on the island, someone or something was keeping tabs on Jordan and his team. The language and the technology didn’t appear human. Thus, it was possible that something extraterrestrial was monitoring them. Moreover, the creature that chased them after Ryan’s death also wasn’t an animal. It was something else, made up of shadows and electronics. Albert Shoenberg, the man they found hiding in a shed, also said the same. Albert managed a tech firm and was one of the richest people in the world. Like Hamilton, he too talked gibberish and was bleeding from his ears. Albert told them that the noise killed everyone on the island. Unfortunately, Jordan had to kill him when Albert pulled a gun in their faces. Naomi and Jordan weren’t so lucky as well and met the same fate. But how? While Jordan was scoping the area, Leo hallucinated Naomi as her abusive father. In his hallucination, he saw his father mocking him, calling him a coward. Leo couldn’t take it any longer and shot him. Leo eventually realized his mistake, but before he could do anything, Jordan shot him.
Did Anyone Escape The Island?
After losing everyone on his team, Jordan goes berserk. He single-handedly eliminated multiple humanoid creatures that had been following him. After decapitating one of them, Jordan found out that, even though they moved and acted like humans, they weren’t. They were extraterrestrials from a different planet. Like others, Jordan also confronted his painful memory of his wife’s death. Jordan even saw his wife in front of him, who told him that they could finally be together. However, all of this was a farce, and Jordan knew that. The woman he was seeing wasn’t his wife but an alien trying to control his mind. The aliens wanted Jordon to submit, but his mind was too strong for them to control. Maybe this was the reason why Jordan never heard the voice when others on his team did. So, did Jordan escape the island? Yes! Jordan stabbed the woman disguised as his wife. As soon as he pulled the knife out, the alien reverted back to its original form. After the dust settled, Jordan found the boat and sailed off the island.
Black Noise ends with Jack escaping the island, but the most pressing question still lingers in our minds. Were the shadow creatures actually aliens from a different planet? Black Noise never paid any attention to this part. Maybe the filmmakers wanted the audience to derive their own conclusions. It was possible that the things that attacked Ryan and his team were aliens. Also, the noises they heard could’ve been the result of some kind of advanced technology. These aliens were also jamming signals, so no one on the island could call for help. For some reason, Hamilton’s GPS beacon worked. She activated it when she saw what the sound waves were doing to the people on the island. Maybe the aliens were planning an invasion. It was possible that they chose the island to test their sonic weapons. They wanted to see how humans reacted to their weapons. Ryan and his team were unlucky. They were at the wrong place at the wrong time.
