Blumhouse's Fantasy Island

Films about old television have the opportunity connect with that property in either a serious or comedic manner. Sometimes the those older shows lack in quality and can allow modern filmmakers a chance to make a great product to stand on its own while recognizing the ridiculous nature from that period. The best example of this would be both of the Jump Street movies (21 and 22) with how it manages a great balancing act for the lead actors, funny comedy all around, and honoring the genre its leading towards while showing a bit of fan service with the original actors cameos. This brings to Blumhouse's Fantasy Island, which was directed and co-written by Jeff Wadlow (Bloodshot, Truth or Dare). In regards to the show Fantasy Island, I knew very little about it except for Ricardo Montalban in the iconic role as Mr Roarke and from what I heard, the show wasn't that good. The marketing campaign for this project that was produced by Blumhouse Productions (cheap budget but great creative control for filmmakers) make it appear to be leaning towards a horror angle. It was released into theaters for a brief 1 month theatrical release before moving onto digital release platform. I rented it on Amazon to see how it compared to the Jeff Wadlow's other writing effort Bloodshot and after watching it, I'm surprised how messy it ended up being. 

What's it about? The story follows five people visiting the titular island to find their fantasies coming true but turn into nightmares they try to survive. On paper this re-imagination of a concept from the show set as a prequel to it has the potential to be a fun memorable romp. There are certain aspects of the desires of these characters that feel a bit more human than others. The opportunity to let these people enact out their desires to their natural conclusion makes more sense in some cases while others feel tacked on. 

What ends up happening feels like a wild circus of problems that pile on the more it goes on. The characterization for a handful of characters starts off unlikeable but while some get more tame later on, others become erratic based on their writing. The rules set up early on (each guest gets 1 fantasy granted and must be seen through to its natural conclusion) get ignored and tossed out later on. A secret revealed about the islands powers is not only ludicrous but also raises more questions that neither the film (nor the TV show I'm sure) will answer. The dialogue is very cringe to listen and doesn't feel natural from the actors (from clumsily delivered exposition, terrible jokes, on the nose messages that haven't been hammered in enough, forced pop culture references such as mentioning Tupac 3 times, etc.). The "horror" element is severely neutered due to reliance on predictable weak jump scares (at least 7 of them featuring the camera showing a character looking to one direction only to look at them again with something behind them). And to top it off at the end, there's a plot twist in the final 15 minutes that's haphazard in its execution that you can see film fall apart miserably in how an iconic character is established in the franchise. 

 

How are the actors? In regards to story importance, the actors to focus on are Lucy Hale and Maggie Q. Lucy is an example on how actors with bad film track records can be affected not only by a wonky script but also lackluster direction as her delivery is too rushed to try getting through this project. Maggie is best performers here, which isn't saying much, but her delivery feels that she's putting in more of an effort than everyone else and has better material to work with. Honorable mentions go to Michael Rooker just for looking weird in his appearance and acting as himself, despite the role he plays. Dishonorable mentions Michael Pena, Jimmy O Yang, and Ryan Hansen with the former being very miscast for the iconic role and the latter 2 being among the weakest acted (in addition to being annoying). 

 

Overall Consensus: Blumhouse's Fantasy Island fails to take advantage of using its source material in a manner that results in lacking in horror and good acting while suffering from writing that doesn't fall apart throughout the story. ⭑1/2 Runtime: 1 hour 49 minutes PG-13

 

Reasons to watch it: You like the aforementioned actors and/or director Jeff Wadlow. You want to see if this problematic feature can be so bad it's good. 

 

Reasons to avoid it: You dislike the aforementioned actors and/or director Jeff Wadlow. You dislike cringeworthy humor and acting in lame horror flicks. You like the old Fantasy Island show but don't want to see how it's adapted here.