- One of the absolute worst movies I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a few movies in my time.

Full Disclosure: I didn’t really know what to expect out of this one going in. I was vaguely familiar with the TV show on which this movie is based, but I’ve never seen a full episode. I just remember the little guy saying “Master! Ze plane! Ze plane!” Blumhouse Productions churns out decent-to-great horror movies on a semi-regular basis, so I decided to give this a shot.

Review

I love a good bad movie. For example, The Room, widely considered to be one of the worst movies ever made, is one of my all-time favorites. There are plenty of relentlessly entertaining bad movies out there, especially in the horror genre. If I’m channel surfing and I come across I Know What You Did Last Summer, Leprechaun In the Hood, or Jason X (the one where he’s in space), I’m all in. Unfortunately, Fantasy Island is no Jason X. Fantasy Island is an affront to bad movies. It’s an abhorrent abomination masquerading as a feature film. It has no redemptive qualities. Everything about it totally and completely sucks long hard Tijuana donkey dong.

The cast in what I imagine to be a candid moment of them trying in vain to understand the script.

This article could easily just be a list of synonyms for the word “shitty”. Instead, I’ll just try to keep it short. There’s really not much worth mentioning, hence the 0.0 rating I’ve chosen to bestow upon this garbage heap. It’s my first (and so far only) 0.0 since I started this website in July of 2019. It’s a dubious honor, and I don’t give it lightly. It’s reserved for the dregs of the world of cinema; the movies that have literally zero redemptive qualities to speak of. The directing was directionless, the script was nonsensical, and the acting was atrocious. Even the soundtrack was bland. I don’t understand how something like this gets green-lit by a reputable production company like Blumhouse. It makes me wonder if anyone involved actually read the damn script. It seems like a first draft that was typed out by some first-time hack screenwriter strung out after a weeklong cocaine and Jäger binge. The decision to fund and create a multimillion dollar film is never an overnight process, so how this made it through all those production meetings without anyone raising a hand and saying, “Hang on a minute,” is truly beyond me.

Another presumably candid shot from set, capturing the moment when these unfortunate thespians realized what their respective agents got them into.

No spoiler section this time. There’s nothing worth spoiling. A few people die, a few people live, but in the end, who the hell cares? The violence is majorly subdued due to the movie’s PG-13 rating. Some gratuitous B-movie gore and shameless T&A would’ve at least spiced it up a little bit, but the Blumhouse people elected to aim for mass appeal. Unfortunately, it seems to have worked, at least financially. It’s been universally critically panned, but at the time of writing this article, Fantasy Island has managed to gross $34 million against a $7 million budget. Movie making is a bottom-line business, so these filmmakers will not have learned their lesson as long as their pockets are heavy with the audience’s money. Luckily, I have an AMC Stubs A-List membership, thus saving me the agonizing guilt of having spent twenty bucks on a Dolby ticket to see this. My only regret now is sitting through all 109 minutes of Fantasy Island.

“At least I got paid, bitches!” - Michael Peña (probably).

5 Quick Hits

Why, Michael Peña? Why? You’re so much better than this! I just hope you got paid well, because a film like this can set an actor’s career back ten years.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen an already bad movie get so much worse in the third act. What little semblance of a plot the movie had completely unraveled as the writers threw twist after twist at us, expecting the audience to give enough of a shit to actually follow what was happening. None of it made any sense whatsoever, but at that point I was too checked out to care.
What was Michael Rooker doing in this movie? His character was totally pointless and a complete waste of his talents.
I can’t believe this movie had the balls to set up a potential sequel in the final scene. The sheer audacity of believing this movie would spawn a franchise is infuriating.
On a personal note, it’s been a really mentally and spiritually taxing week at the movies for me. I saw Birds of Prey, Sonic, and Fantasy Island in quick succession over the course of a few days, and I can honestly say it’s been the worst three movie stretch of my moviegoing life. I have no one to blame but myself though. My only solace is that anyone who reads these articles will hopefully be saved from sharing the same horrid fate. These are dark days for cinema lovers. I just hope March of 2020 brings better quality movies.