My Review of "Fantasy Island"

Fantasy Island is a Blumhouse horror movie that's exclusive to Amazon Prime. It came directly to stream in 2020 so we didn't hear too much publicity about this movie. It's a pretty good cast for such a movie and the idea actually quite intriguing but the movie ultimately falls short closer to the end of the movie.

This film starts off with a with a vicious kidnapping. There's no real context to this kidnapping but you know that everything will be explained eventually in the movie. The thing is that this part of the movie is so far in the beginning of the movie. I totally forget about this part of the movie when they finally started to explain the context to the kidnapping. There are too many stories to concentrate on that I totally forgot about it.

Shortly after the kidnapping the there are a group of guests that get flied onto beautiful island resort. These guests apparently won some sort of contest to get onto that island. We have Gwen, Melanie, Patrick, Brax and J.D.

Each of these characters have heard the stories of the island that they've been flown to. It's called Fantasy Island because they get to live the fantasy of their heart's desire. They can think of anything but there is only one fantasy per guest. They also have to live that fantasy until its natural conclusion, whatever that means.

Gwen has a fantasy of reliving the past where she says yes to her boyfriend's marriage proposal. Melanie wishes to take revenge on her high school bully. Patrick has a weird desire to enlist in the army. I thought that one was weird because who's really stopping him from enlisting? Brax and J.D are brothers and they basically want to live life like they're wealthy.

As a horror movie you already know things are going to turn sideways when they get their wishes to come true. Some of the wishes you start to wonder if there are repercussions for such fantasies while others you obviously know what's going to happen. It's a very fun concept that I think anyone would think would be worth watching.

The problem with the movie is that at times they don't even follow their own rules to the movie. I realize that everything is kind of magical in the movie so it doesn't have to make sense but you can't bend your own rules in the movie. Even worse there is a plot twist that absolutely doesn't make sense at all. Even after watching it and reflecting back on the movie it didn't make sense to me. It just had me scratching my head at why they thought people would think the twist would be okay.

Still there are some fun ideas throughout this movie that I think they executed relatively well. They explored some of the characters very well. It clearly explained their pasts and the regret that they had as a result. Having to juggle so many characters in one movie is going to be difficult and eventually it starts to become some sort of mystery movie.

As a horror movie there are some jump scares but they don't really have any moments where you're wincing at the thought of one of the characters are going to die. I don't know if there is that much attachment to each of the characters that really warrants this. It's pretty much on brand with a lot of the other Blumhouse horror movies. I would say that there is a sense of suspense but I don't know if I could consider this an all out horror movie.

Overall, I thought this movie was just okay. This movie was made for a general audience so you will expect to see something that pleases everyone here. The last half of the movie was seriously lacking compared to the first half of the movie. It's too bad because I felt that this movie had a ton of potential. I have to give this movie a 6 out of 10. If you go watch this movie you can have a lot of fun as long as you're able to shut your brain off.