Movies
[Review] Painfully Dull ‘Fantasy Island’ Is an Uninspired Getaway Devoid of Scares
For seven seasons that ran from 1977-1984, the hugely popular TV series Fantasy Island brought guests to a mysterious resort island to live out their greatest fantasies. Ricardo Montalbán starred as Mr. Roarke, the mysterious and supernatural-leaning overseer of the resort, who would open each episode with a cryptic warning that wishes never turn out how they’re expected before manifesting his guests’ desires. Often, there was peril, and sometimes even death. Fantasies could easily become nightmares. In other words, it’s a setup ripe for a straightforward horror feature adaptation. Unfortunately, Blumhouse’s latest doesn’t offer much in the way of exciting thrills or even horror.
After a bland cold open that sees a terrified, battered woman running for her life from masked assailants on the eponymous resort island, we’re introduced to the core five that think they’ve won a contest that earns them a free stay on Fantasy Island. Mr. Roarke, now played by Michael Peña, his trusty new assistant Julia (Parisa Fitz-Henley), and the creepy staff receive brothers Brad (Ryan Hansen) and Brax (Jimmy O. Yang), Elena (Maggie Q), Randall (Austin Stowell), and Melanie (Lucy Hale). The guests are plied with drinks and warm welcomes, just before being whisked off to their fantasies. There are only two rules: only one fantasy per guest, and the fantasy must be followed to its natural conclusion.
The four fantasies that play out are all of the insipid, uninspired variety. Deep desires for revenge on childhood bullies, righting a fateful decision that created regret, a luxurious lifestyle, and one last chance to reconnect with a lost loved one all make for typical wish-fulfillment we’ve seen many times before. None of these stories attempt to veer off course and try something new. Worse, there’s zero stakes or tension. Just a by-the-numbers “be careful what you wish for” with vague, ominous underpinnings — emphasis on vague. We never really care about these characters, and we especially don’t care for their tired fantasies.
Eventually, the four central fantasies do dovetail into one cohesive story. Still, the not-so-subtly foreshadowed hints mean you know full well how it’ll end long before it reaches the climax of an overlong runtime just ten minutes shy of two hours. What’s worse is that when the third act finally arrives, the characters unite only to devolve into the most shallow and infuriating horror clichés. It’s only in this final act that director Jeff Wadlow (Truth or Dare, Cry Wolf) seems to even remember this should be a horror film at all. Mostly it plays as an ineffective character study of guilt that’s tediously empty until an absurdly overstuffed climax.
It’s hard to know who this new take on the ‘70s TV classic is for; sly Easter eggs, lines of dialogue, and one laughably bad parting moment all pay overt homage to the series, but everything in between feels aimed toward a very young audience. With zero stakes and way too much emphasis on drama, the horror is a bare afterthought. Meaning, there’s not enough horror to appease even a budding horror fan, and what little exists is contrived and superficial.
Fantasy Island is the most boring tropical getaway you could take. It takes nearly an hour for the characters to understand that they’re finally getting their greatest wishes fulfilled, then there’s almost an hour more of falling into every single dumb horror pitfall possible. And yet, despite the excruciating length dedicated to characters behaving irrationally, the plot is stretched way too thin. It’s predictable, oh so dull, and downright groan-worthy. Especially the final act. The level of cheesiness will have your eyes rolling out of their skull.
Unless you’re looking to break up, don’t bring your Valentine’s date to Fantasy Island.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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