Horror Movie A Day: Blumhouse's Fantasy Island (2020)

MARCH 2, 2020

GENRE: SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

Normally I go see the genre films on opening weekend, but Blumhouse's Fantasy Island (yes, that's the on-screen title, which they also did for Truth or Dare, another Jeff Wadlow joint) came out the same weekend as Sonic, and as a dad, that had to take priority*. Likewise, I usually see movies "in order" (by release date), but the reviews and indifference to this film meant it seemed silly to wait on the ones I was looking forward to on the following weekends (Boy II and Invisible Man), so basically we can thank Super Tuesday for me finally having the time, as coverage of the event meant nothing to do at my day job, "forcing" me to use a paid day off and waste it on things like this.

I should note that I've never seen a frame of the old show, though I looked at a few "best episodes" lists and quickly discovered that Blumhouse making the big screen version wasn't as odd as it sounded, as the show seemingly dipped its toes into genre territory pretty often. Episodes revolving around ghosts, haunted mansions, and even Jack the Ripper kept coming up just as often as romantic themed tales during my cursory searches, so it would seem any studio (not just Blumhouse) would likely want at least some kind of spooky element in their adaptation. And it's pretty horror-lite compared to the other movies bearing the Blumhouse name; there's a supernatural explanation for the things on the island, but apart from the Hostel reject who torments Lucy Hale's frenemy (her fantasy is to get revenge on the girl who bullied her in high school) it's basically an action/adventure movie that occasionally tries to pull at your heartstrings.

And that's because of the five main characters, Hale is the only one whose fantasy lends itself to genre movie scenarios. The other woman (Maggie Q) doesn't even HAVE a fantasy, but eventually Mr. Roarke (the Ricardo Montalban role, played by Michael Peña) convinces her to see what would have happened if she said "yes" to a marriage proposal five years earlier. As for the three dudes, one of them wants to try living out a war fantasy since his dad was a soldier while he was rejected by the armed forces, and the other two just want to party with models (male and female; in addition to the nicely multicultural cast, one of the three men is gay, and his alpha male brother is very supportive of it). Things go sideways in all of these fantasies, of course, but none of them are really played for scares. If you cut the Lucy Hale bully stuff, there'd be almost nothing for Blumhouse to justify their posters for the movie, which were better than the film itself.

Before you think it, no, it's not the horror-lite result that left me indifferent to its narrative, because I knew that coming in. The problem is that the movie - which is just under two hours, for Christ's sake - takes too damn long to get to the part where it actually starts being fun, and it's too late to save it. Without spoiling the particulars, there are a couple of twists in the final half hour that had me laughing out loud, while also appreciating the cast for going all in on the nonsense and playing it straight - but it also left me wondering why they didn't just dive into this kind of insanity so much earlier. There's some minor "wait, is this part of the fantasy or is this an unrelated thing that's really happening" tension in the first hour (Roarke carefully explains that fantasies do not always play out the way they hope), but as the storylines go on, I quickly realized I didn't care either way - none of them, or their characters, were interesting enough to put much stock into whether or not the people were in real danger or how their lives might change as a result.

Hell, they couldn't even rope me in with "Dad Stuff", which is usually like shooting fish in a barrel for me (for non-longtime readers who are unaware, my father died when I was in my early 20s, long before I had a son of my own). The soldier guy ends up being on the mission that his father was on when he died saving his squad from a wayward grenade, giving him not only a chance to fight alongside his pops but also save him (though the time travel element of this is never explored), which is the sort of thing I'd usually eat up, but leave it to the consistently middling Wadlow (he also gave us Cry_Wolf and Kick-Ass 2; Truth or Dare at "eh, not that bad" is probably his best movie) to bungle even that much. And that was the best of its scenarios!

Until those silly reveals (one of which will have you realize that several scenes had a character acting innocent even when alone, which suggests a twist no one bothered to think through) the only other amusement the film really provided were the brief turns by Michael Rooker and Kim Coates, two men who are simply incapable of being boring. Rooker plays a reporter who went undercover to try to expose the island and is living in hiding in/around the compound to compile more evidence before signaling for a plane to come take him, while Coates plays the leader of the mercenaries who the soldier guy's dad is tracking. Coates actually manages the film's most intriguing idea with a single line: "How do you know that this isn't MY fantasy?" he asks one of our protagonists that he is currently terrorizing, which it very well could be since Roarke doesn't exactly come across as the most noble person in the world and thus might not really give a shit what his guests want as long as they pay up and don't blow up his spot.

Alas, nothing is done with the idea, and I still don't know if Coates' character is a real person or something dreamed up by the island's power. But, again, I don't really care either. Regardless of what genre it belongs to (to be fair it toys with just about all of them - it's a romantic action/adventure horror comedy with some sci-fi!), the characters or their fantasies simply aren't engaging enough to get too invested with how it ends up, and the twist, while delivering some unintentional laughs, isn't satisfying or particularly well explained (keeping it vague for spoilerphobes, so for those who have seen the movie: try to imagine the meeting between _______ and Roarke when the former pitched their *actual* fantasy). That'd be frustrating enough for an 80 minute movie, but when you're asking for just under two hours, you gotta deliver more than a handful of laughable plot turns to even qualify as "so bad it's good" kind of entertainment. And yes, while it's not always the case the PG-13 rating does indeed hurt the film here - pretty chaste fantasies considering you can have whatever you want, people!

What say you?

P.S. There's some evil black goo here, so I hope Blumhouse makes another PG-13 reboot/remake/re-whatever that has it so we can get a trilogy with this and Black Christmas.

*I was doubly excited since it was the first live action movie he's ever wanted to see. Finally, a crack in the ice! Maybe I can take him to a Marvel movie this or next year!