Mystery Island and Hallmark’s Movies & Mysteries
You love their cards, but Hallmark’s movies are even better.
One of life’s small pleasures is Hallmark’s “Movies & Mysteries” series. Some might call these movies guilty pleasures, but I don’t subscribe to that concept. If it’s a pleasure, it’s a pleasure, and there’s no need to feel guilty about it. And of the extensive movie collection Hallmark offers, none is as great a pleasure as the four (and counting) Mystery Island films.
If there is one thing I love about Mystery Island, it’s that it does not try to be anything more than what it is. There is no ironic detachment, no wink at the camera. Mystery Island is just what it says on the tin – mysteries set on an island. Mostly murder mysteries, and what a perfect setting for them. The eponymous island is the home of whodunnit games for an affluent clientele, where, as one would expect, an actual murder ends up taking place within each movie. Luckily, criminal psychologist Emilia Priestly (Elizabeth Henstridge) and officer Jason Trent (Charlie Weber) are there to get into the minds of the killers.
All of this is very seventies and eighties coated. Viewers often remember Columbo as a procedural TV series, when it really was what Mystery Island is – a recurring series of TV movies. To put it into some perspective, there have been no fewer than three Mystery Island movies in 2025.
Minor digression: I haven’t seen an announcement for a fourth one, even though I really think there should be a Christmas-themed one. As these movies don’t even have Wikipedia entries, I’m guessing the masses aren’t clamoring for news, and we’ll have to wait for Hallmark and not Deadline to announce the next one.
That aside, Hallmark’s Movies & Mysteries exists somewhere between classic TV shows and conventional movies. Somewhere between Murder, She Wrote1 and Glass Onion. I don’t think anyone expects Hallmark movies to have huge budgets – again, three films from one single franchise in 2025 – but when you compare them to expensive Netflix offerings like The Woman in Cabin 10, they look better. Mystery Island has none of the digital blue or green tint you find in most “serious” Netflix movies, but it is bathed in warm colors that capture Panama (where Mystery Island is filmed) perfectly. The actors put in heroic efforts in what I can assume is only a couple of takes, and the principal cast portray well-rounded characters. (Incidentally, the only actor I recognize is Weber, who co-starred in ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder.)
And, while the movies set up a potential relationship between Priestly and Trent in scene three, it’s never presented in a contrived will they or won’t they trope. That they will is laid out from the start – not for one minute is there any indication that they won’t. Love it or hate it, Mystery Island is all text and no subtext.
Call the movies a twist on cozy mysteries if you want – I will call anyone who tries to fool themselves into disliking Mystery Island someone who doesn’t appreciate the finer things in life.
The four movies are, in order: Mystery Island; Mystery Island: Winner Takes All; Mystery Island: Play for Keeps; and Mystery Island: House Rules. The latter very much suggests we’ll be treated to a Mystery Mountain spin-off soon enough.
The Hallmark+ streaming service is $8 a month – half of Netflix's price – and it is well worth it. Included in the price is conservatively ten Lacey Chabert movies a year, so there’s that, too. 🤷
Coincidentally, all of Murder, She Wrote can be found on Hallmark. And Matlock. These are stone-cold classics!