'Fantasy Island' review: Not quite Blumhouse’s best

Age rating: A

Director: Jeff Wadlow

Cast: Michael Peña, Lucy Hale, Maggie Q

Rating: 2/5

As far as modern horror goes, many movie buffs generally swear by two studios: A24 and Blumhouse. And for the most part, both studios have a fairly solid track record between A24’s The Witch and Blumhouse’s Halloween reboot. However, the studio’s latest go, Fantasy Island, is a bit of a dud.

The story follows a group of six guests who have mysteriously won a trip to a so-called ‘Fantasy Island’, which according to its steward Mr Roarke (Michael Peña), is a place where anything is possible. Unfortunately, a strong story is not one of those. Now the six guests are hurled one by one into their fantasies while a darker power plays out its game in the background, taking the form of a hideous burnt man and dripping black water everywhere. Oh, and Michael Rooker’s lurking about the island.

Let’s talk about the characters first, since they’re the cornerstone of Fantasy Island. There’s a fairly diverse set of fellows here, to its credit – between two brothers who are as alike as they are different, a cop who desperately wants to play hero, a woman apparently pained by her past and a young girl looking for adventure.

This diverse cast of rather generic templates of characters is put to the test in their own personal fantasies involving bars, gunfights and making up for old mistakes. But, as usual, every little bit of fun and games has a price in things like this, and soon everything goes sideways and you see bullets flying, strange fellows scampering on walls and zombies with black ooze from their eyes – all things you’ve seen before.

The acting is, to be honest, kind of flat. Everyone in the cast seems to do the bare minimum to make it look like they’re in whatever kind of trouble they’re in, but it never quite feels right, especially with Austin Stowell’s Patrick and Portia Doubleday’s Sloane, who stick out like sour grapes in a bunch of mediocre grapes. Only Michael Peña, who plays the stoic, generally apathetic Roarke and Michael Rooker, who gets tree fiddy worth of screen time, sell their roles in any believable capacity.

It also doesn’t help that none of the characters ever feel like they’re in any real danger, even when danger gets really close to some of them, almost as if the actors couldn’t be bothered a lot with being convincing in delivering their performances.

So what is there to like about Fantasy Island? Well, it looks clean and is shot rather decently, and Michael Rooker is always a charm to watch, but other than that, there’s really not a lot to write home about. This is more like a movie that you rent when you have a slow weekend and rewatching something you’ve seen 10 times before is not on your agenda.