Fantasy Island

“Once you begin a fantasy, you must see it through to its natural conclusion.”

Filmology Rating: 1.5 out of 4

Fantasy Island from the visionary who brought us his masterpiece, 'Truth or Dare', comes his newest Blumhouse film that will tank at the box office. The scariest part of the film was when I saw the Sony logo or when a character mentioned the service Yelp several times (because Fantasy Island, a place where people constantly disappear, has a Yelp page). A group of characters arrive at Fantasy Island where they expect their fantasy to cater to their deepest desires. When everything they asked for begins happening, they all change their minds. Michael Rooker is also in the woods with a machete.

This is a very strange film because it is from Blumhouse and it's not a horror film. The first hour is like four different movies and only one of them is horror esc. One is of them is like the sequel to 'Project X.' The next one is like a soap opera. Then another one is a war film with the final plot thread being a slasher. The issue is that all of those are different genres with their own tones, but they all exist in the same movie about people who fantasize about completely different things.

A lot of this film is just characters delivering information about the past for the sake of, not one, but two twists. One of which made the film slightly more interesting, the other one just made the entire film dumber and more confusing.

The entire film itself is very dumb, but the for the first half I found myself mostly confused because I was trying to figure out what kind of film I was watching. A war film? Drama? Drunken comedy? Slasher? It was all very odd until Michael Rooker showed up and the film just became a boring Blumhouse film where people are trying to kill each other.

It's hard to describe, but the film kept me constantly engaged, but not necessarily because the film was good, but because my brain was confused and what I was watching. Who is the protagonist? I can definitely tell you for a fact that it's not the blonde girl...So really, nobody is the protagonist.

There is a certain kind of screenwriting that I really dislike and it's any script that utilizes "the force." Let me reiterate.

In 'Star Wars' the force is always some hack screenwriter's way of explaining a myriad, and I mean a myriad, of plot holes. 'Fantasy Island' has that mystical element that makes the fantasies come true, but it's never truly explained how it works. So the rules are very convoluted. Especially with a horror film, the rules MUST be established so that there is something called "stakes" in your film. But a lot of the film's confusion is patched up with, "The magical island did it!"

I'm not sure what to think about 'Fantasy Island', but it is very dumb and tonally confusing. I can say one thing for sure: it is certainly more entertaining to watch than 'Truth or Dare.'

Rating: Let It Burn

-Nolan