Fantasy Island review: Fantasy Island was originally set for a Valentine’s Day release, but it was then pushed back to 6th March. It’s an odd thing to do, especially given the money that would have been pumped into the marketing for the Valentine’s release. Cinemas are also heaving at the moment with genre cinema; The Invisible Man is already out, Sacrilege releases on the same day, and The Hunt arrives on Wednesday. With all this competition, can Fantasy Island stand out from the crowd?
Lucy Hale, Austin Stowell and Michael Peña in Columbia Pictures’ BLUMHOUSE’S FANTASY ISLAND.
After directing Truth or Dare, Jeff Wadlow returns with another Blumhouse produced film, Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island, a modern horror adaptation of the popular ’70s television series. The film follows a group of people who win a trip to the mysterious Fantasy Island, a place where all guests are granted a single fantasy. The group all pick the standard fantasies – revenge on a bully, live the high-life, re-kindle an old romance, play the hero, but soon their wildest dreams morph into a nightmare. It becomes clear that they might not be living out their own fantasy…
When a film has to insert ‘Blumhouse’ into its title to try and entice an audience, you already know what you’re in for. The likes of Get Out, The Invisible Man, and Happy Death Day didn’t have the production house’s brand as part of the title, for example. The inclusion though works against the film as, given the brand’s reputation, many will go in expecting a certain kind of film and will be bitterly disappointed. Fantasy Island opts to skip the traditional jump scares, favouring a more science-fiction thriller aesthetic. Sadly this new direction can’t save the film from falling into all the same dull and predictable pitfalls. Fantasy Island tries hard to make itself clever and twisty, but the reality is that all of these moments are signposted very early on.
The story revolves around the idea of the old adage of ‘be careful what you wish for’, but the film never quite nails the message. If you’re in the market for a horror movie that deals with wish fulfilment gone awry then I suggest you seek out Wish Upon, at least that has a semblance of humour to it. Fantasy Island does try and pump some comedy in, casting Ryan Hanson (Veronica Mars) and Jimmy O. Yang (Silicon Valley) as brothers and the comedy relief. Rather than providing relief though, they actually incite irritation; their characters feel even more outdated than the source material. The pair rely too heavily on pop culture references, something that films really shouldn’t do if they want to stay relevant. There was a similar issue with Wadlow’s Truth or Dare which relied too heavily on apps and technology. Here there are references to MTV Cribs, Call of Duty, Game of Thrones etc., that will likely fly over the heads of future generations.
With so many ‘main’ characters, the narrative plays out in a rather fractured way. We follow one character for a little while before switching to another, and then back again, and so on. There’s too much time between the plot lines to fully invest in any of them. All tension is lost the minute we jump to someone else, and by the time we rejoin someone that we left on the brink of peril, we’ve forgotten what was happening. It’s a little like a computer game that allows you to control different characters, only you don’t care whether these ones live or die.
On a technical level, Fantasy Island has the same level of gloss and production values that Blumhouse is known for. Again, it’s very much style over substance. The score works well by composer Bear McCreary. At times the film actually feels a little bit like Lost, Austin Stowell could easily pass for the younger brother of Matthew Fox’s Jack Shepard, but all that does is reinforce that the idea is better suited to television. The medium in which the idea started. The cast, barring a couple of supporting players, is primarily made of familiar television stars.
A well put together film let down by a weak story and forgettable characters, Blumhouse might soon be wishing that they hadn’t associated their name with it so prominently.
Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island is in cinemas now.
