Fantasy Island is More a Horror Comedy
Fantasy Island was directed by Jeff Wadlow, and is a ‘horror’ adaptation of the popular ‘70s television show of the same name, where a group of people come to an island where their greatest fantasy becomes a reality, but ends up being warped in horrible ways. Now I say ‘horror’ because well…this plays out more like a comedy with supernatural elements, and less like a horror movie, and that’s fine, because as I’ll explain below, this definitely worked for me.
Let me start by saying that this isn’t a serious film, not at all. This has B-Movie Blockbuster (sorry, Doug) written all over it. The cast is definitely not really giving it their all, but that’s not a bad thing. They seemed loose and relaxed on-screen. This is a movie that knows what it is, and every member of this group knew how to play their parts. The ‘scares’ if you can call them that, are alright. There are moments where something is sort of supposed to make you jump, but really nothing happens. I think they tried to market this as a horror take on this show, but the horror wasn’t even there. There’s some violent moments and some straight up supernatural stuff going on, but I felt like the comedy overtook the horror and drama, and replaced it with laughs.
Don’t get me wrong though, all of what I said above is not entirely bad. The film felt light-hearted, the story felt somewhat charming at times as you watch people’s fantasies become reality. There were some heart-felt moments that kind of tugged at my heart a little bit, and I felt kind of surprised that this movie, this super cheesy B-movie, was able to actually make me feel something, so for that I have to commend the cast. The plot of the movie was easy to follow, the twist and mystery behind everything was easy to digest. This really is just a simple film to go in, sit back, turn your brain off, laugh at the jokes, and enjoy a bowl of popcorn.
Fantasy Island is not great, it’s not terrible, it’s not scary, but dammit I had fun watching it. There were some great characters. Michael Peña, Jimmy O. Yang, and Ryan Hansen steal the show (despite Maggie Q and Lucy Hale taking most of the screen time), and you should totally just go see it if you’re looking for something light and easy to enjoy. But don’t go into this thinking you’re about to watch an arthouse film or something Ari Aster would’ve directed…this isn’t it.
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