Fantasy Island (Post-release)

[Riceball]

Yup, the reboot train is going at full speed again. This time it's Sony rebooting Fantasy Island as a horror movie. While I'm not that fond of reboots, I do think that this is an interesting take on the old series and I don't think that you could a reboot of the series as it was, I just don't think that it would work with today's audience. Plus, with some of the fantasies that people would have today, let's just say that it would have to be an R rated movie or a streaming only series.

I actually hope that this movie does well, that way somebody can do a reboot movie of the Love Boat. Instead of a rom-com, it would be a horror movie where the ship is haunted and crashes into an iceberg, while being chased by a giant sea monster.

 

[AJTaliesen]

This inspired me to rewatch the original. Haven't seen it since I was a kid. I just watched the pilot and it's definitely not like I remembered. In fact, this reboot is actually not as far off as you might think.

It's basically a horror show made for TV. In the first episode there's three guests. One is a hunter, who comes to the island and gets hunted. Also along the way Mr. Roark apparently bought him a new girlfriend. Another guest wants to fake her own death to see who is really loyal to her. Turns out her sister figures it out and tries to use the opportunity to actually murder her. The sister ends up getting killed instead. The third is a guy who wants to relive a romance he had one weekend in WWII, that seems to be the nice love-boaty one...until the end when we find out that in real life he got angry at the end of the weekend and murdered the girl. It happens again and Roark let's him relive the fantasy of murdering the girl. (Roark claims she didn't really die, it's implied the magic of the island prevented it...but as an audience, who knows? She never appears again. Roark says she he put her on the plane to leave that morning and she was fine).

So ultimately...it's pretty much a horror show. That's just the pilot. I assume it gets more light hearted since I seem to remember it being more family friendly as a kid, but who knows? That was a long time ago.

Bigger problem with this trailer is the casting of Mr. Roark. The way it was played in the pilot I just saw (late 70's) Ricardo Montalban was portrayed as a magic figure who controlled the island, and was basically the ultimate in charming debonaire smooth style. He was almost a melodrama version of the magic dungeon master figure. The new one doesn't even come close to capturing that. At least not in the trailer.

 

[Funky]

Agreed. Micheal Pena is fine at comedy but in NO way does he exude the same commanding charm and charisma that Mr. Mantolban did.

 

[Tan Djarka]

I actually hope that this movie does well, that way somebody can do a reboot movie of the Love Boat. Instead of a rom-com, it would be a horror movie where the ship is haunted and crashes into an iceberg, while being chased by a giant sea monster.

Been done. It was called Ghost Ship

 

[Bigdaddy]

I'm not big into horror but my kid is, we'll probably check it out when it hits streaming.

I tried to rewatch the series a few years ago and it was bad, I mean really, really bad! Most of my favorite TV shows from that era are best left as a fond memory.

 

[NakedMoleRat]

I actually liked the 90’s remake with Malcolm McDowell. It was pretty good but only lasted a half season.