Five contest winners arrive for an all-expenses paid stay on Fantasy Island. Their host, Mr. Roarke (Michael Pena), informs the guests their fantasies will come true. Gwen Olsen (Maggie Q) wants to live her life without regret. Melanie Cole (Lucy Hale) wants to exact revenge on her high school tormentor Sloane Maddison (Portia Doubleday). Patrick Sullivan (Austin Stowell) is looking to play soldier in a realistic simulation. Stepbrothers Brax and JD Weaver (Jimmy O. Yang and Ryan Hansen) are looking for a holiday filled with debauchery. All are thinking their fantasies will be created using virtual reality and holograms, but they all soon learn that everything they asked for is absolutely real, and their free vacations comes with a high and dangerous price.
Back in the late 1970’s, a TV show debuted on ABC that announced the arrival of the plane carrying passengers to visit “Fantasy Island.” The shows multiple stories usually centered on characters thinking they wanted one thing, then learning their true desire was something else. As the show progressed over seven seasons, the writers began to add darker dimensions to Mr. Roarke, played in the show by Ricardo Montalban. Was the mysterious head of Fantasy Island a god or a devil? Did the power to make fantasies come true emanate from his own magical abilities or the island? Did Roarke gain anything from granting these wishes? All these questions were left unanswered as the show went off the air in 1984. Now, the studio known for “The Purge,” “Paranormal Activity” and “Insidious” franchises has decided to revive the series as a movie and amp up the darker aspects, giving us “Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island.” It would have been best if they had let this fantasy remain unfulfilled.
The movie gets off to a pretty good start as we meet all the visitors to the island as they interact and prepare for their fantasies to begin. Each is a specific or more broad type: Gwen is a driven career woman, Melanie is a shallow millennial, Patrick is the All-American Boy, and the Weaver brothers are hedonistic douche bags. Their fantasies all seem to be going the way they want, but little hints are dropped letting us know not everyone will get a happy ending. One of those hints is a mysterious figure seen walking near all the guests. He leaves behind footprints that are black and wet. Another hint is the appearance of Michael Rooker as a mysterious and perhaps threatening character. The movie sews seeds of what might be an interesting and tense film. Then it all goes wrong.
While the movie juggles four storylines, it only lasts an hour and 39 minutes. Each character and their fantasy feel underdeveloped. I would have preferred the writers Jeff Wadlow, Chris Roach and Jillian Jacobs to expand on the characters and their reasons for being on the island further. Instead, the script rushes through the introductions, gives us very little backstory, and begins the fantasies. The filmmakers clearly want to get to the creepy stuff as quickly as possible, but with just five minutes more world building per character, the movie would still have been just two hours long and been better overall.
Another issue with “Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island” is a significant spoiler that isn’t revealed until halfway through the film, so I won’t discuss it here. What I will say is it isn’t handled very well. Giving a few seconds of thought to this twist reveals the entire story falls apart. The writers hope you either aren’t paying attention or don’t care about gaping plot holes, but this aspect of the story stuck out to me like a neon sign at the bottom of a coal mine.
The film also loves to throw in extra twists to crank up the mystery. Spoiler Alert: It doesn’t. After the second twist they all feel like the writers were daring each other to include more outlandish story ideas and bet on which ones stayed in the film. It appears they all were kept in the final script. I understand the need for a couple of zigs and zags to maintain the mysterious nature of an island and Mr. Roarke, but writers appear to have become addicted to throwing more and more monkey wrenches into the works. The result is a story that loses all credibility as we stumble to a conclusion that feels like it was designed by committee.
“Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island” is rated PG-13 for violence, terror, drug content, suggestive material and brief strong language. There are shootings, stabbings, fist fights and violence of various kinds. None is graphic, but there are scenes of what appear to be eyeballs bursting in people’s heads. A character is shown with his mouth sewn shut. Another appears to be severely burned. Drug content is one character appearing to use a bong. Scantily clad men and women are shown with suggestions of sexual activity. Foul language is mild and scattered.
“Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island” isn’t scary. It also doesn’t build much tension. It seems to fail at everything Blumhouse has done well in its other horror franchises. It could have really cranked up the scares and gore, accepted an R rating, and maybe given itself permission to dive into the premise. Instead, the film is a safe bet, never taking any real risks and giving the audience a slightly more intense and longer episode of the TV show. It is tame and inoffensive, and that offends me. Moving a TV program to the big screen 25 years after that show went off the air requires a bold and fresh take. To simply rehash the premise of “Fantasy Island” feels cowardly. If you’re going to fail, fail big. “Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island” fails but fails with its tail between its legs.
“Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island” gets two out of tune guitars out of five.
The WIMZ.com movie review for March is “
A Quiet Place Part II
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