The Stream: The horror came second fiddle to the convoluted storytelling

The Big Screen: The idea for the movie is quite clever

The Final Bill: Great views and concept but over detailed storytelling distracts from the horror.

-S2S: Movie Review
Director: Jeff Wadlow
Writers: Jillian Jacobs, Christopher Roach | 1 more credit »
Stars: Lucy Hale, Maggie Q, Portia Doubleday, Michael Peña 
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Horror  (I’d say Sci-fi, Suspense, Thriller)
Runtime: 1 hour 41 minutes
Rating: PG-13 (Violent but not gory, sexually suggestive)
Notable Trailers: Badtrip, Black Widow, Free Guy, Lovebirds, The Hunt, The Way Back, Morbius, Bloodshot

DE PLANE, DE PLANE! I mean Stream to Big Screen strikes again. This weekend we were able to view Fantasy Island, as well. Fantasy Island is a horror adaptation/perversion of the old TV show from the 70’s. The movie stars a cast of characters headlined by Lucy Hale, Michael Pena and Maggie Q. But should people go to the theater to view this movie?

Let’s start with the easiest way to describe this movie, which is if Shutter Island had a baby with Inception and one of the grandparents was Fantasy Island the TV show. If you’ve seen those two movies before, WHICH I STRONGLY RECOMMEND DOING IF YOU HAVEN’T, then you know just how deceptive, convoluted, and involved this movie is trying to be. Now, that description could be a compliment but in this situation, it is not. Fantasy Island does not measure up to either movie yet it essentially steals elements of both. Even though it is billed as a horror film, the viewer is deceived because Fantasy Island falls more into the Shutter Island psychological thriller realm than pure horror. The other elements of the movie fall more into the Inception Sci-Fi/Thriller realm. Either way, Fantasy Island fails to have a distinct intent and it’s supposed genre was never fully embraced.

Furthermore, the movie is so twisted that it straightens itself out before the two final twist reveals. Just listen to how confusing that statement was. Fantasy Island tried so hard to keep viewers on their toes that they ruin their own anti-climatic twists. I will give credit to the producers that the twists were still executed well but they lacked umph. The viewer is left unafraid due to the overly complicated storytelling and plot developments. It would have served the movie well to just be classified more like the previous movies mentioned, rather than not delivering on the horror genre.

Even with those issues, the cast was sub-par. Individually, the actors were average, but collectively, the actors were still just average. Lucy Hale was by far the best performance at times but still was annoying. I feel Michael Pena was underutilized and or the writing and directing just squandered the possibility of the character. In fact, all of the ensemble cast had issues of being extremely annoying. Now, that I think about it, the writing in this movie was just poor overall. AH HA, found the issue.

With that said, de plane de plane… *clears throat* excuse me. Fantasy Island is a letdown for a horror movie but in a way could have succeeded as a Sci-Fi, psychological thriller. The storyline is not original, which is why they tried to make it so confusing. Or should I say a fantasy within a fantasy within a fantasy. Did they just successfully create an inception?! Either way, you can see this at a matinee time but you’re best served waiting for this to come on HBO Go or a streaming service.