Film Review: Fantasy Island – The Adelaide Review

The fondly-remembered TV series Fantasy Island (original 1977 1984, revival 1998) gets a horror rethink with this initially intriguing but ultimately lame and jumbled epic.

Directed by Jeff Wadlow (of Truth Or Dare and other forgettable outings) and produced by the prolific Jason Blum through his Blumhouse Productions, its a scary movie for Millennials and, therefore, not particularly scary, and carefully constructed to be just intense and bloody enough to warrant a commercially-friendly American PG-13 censorship rating (or an M in Australia).

And that means that you cant expect anything toodifficult or disturbing, even if the appearance of a sadistic goon done up as amalevolent surgeon suggests, for a happy moment, that were hopefully going toveer into Eli Roth and Hostel territory.

A group of guests arrive at the remote Pacific Islandof the title and are introduced to the mysterious Mr. Roarke, whos played by MichaelPea (a cool Hispanic actor surely cast, at least in part, because the originalseries Roarke was portrayed by hammy Mexican thespian Ricardo Montalban). Theytalk amongst themselves about how their specific fantasies might be played out(via actors, holograms or some other trickery?), and quickly demonstrate thattheyre all pretty damn irritating.

High-fiving half-bros Brax (Jimmy O. Yang) and JD(Ryan Hansen) are soon led to their shared fantasy, and it seems to simplyinvolve a huge, rocking pool party full of bikini babes and hunky dudes. PainedGwen Olsen (Maggie Q), however, eventually wants a do-over with a formerboyfriend, little realising that its going to become awkwardly personal. Andjust plain awkward.

Flirty Melanie Cole (Lucy Hale from Truth Or Dare)is the first to have her fantasy turn freaky, as she seeks vengeance againstthe school bully (Portia Doubleday as Sloane) who ruined her life ten or soyears previously, and then theres Patrick Sullivan (Austin Stowell), whosemilitary fantasy is the most irksome and convoluted, even if it helps lead usto the chaotic final act, where everything goes goofily wrong.

Whereas the original series offered fantasy-fulfilmentthat, due to the bland smallscreen constraints of the time, could only belightly romantic or dopily magical, this is free to instead try forsupernatural horror, even if we keep cutting away whenever anything looks to beedging towards the unpleasant or adult. And the characters are so annoying thatwhen no less than grisly old cult fave Michael Rooker (as Damon) emerges fromthe jungle with a big knife, we long for him to start messily murdering thecast with it. But unfortunately he doesnt.

But will there be a sequel? One is certainly (andcringingly) set up at the end here (spoilers?) but maybe its all just a baddream?

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Film Review: Fantasy Island - The Adelaide Review

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero