How Blumhouse rebooted ‘Fantasy Island’ as a horror movie – New York Post

The campy TV show Fantasy Island rebooted as a horror flick? Director Jeff Wadlow (Blumhouses Truth or Dare) says it isnt as much of a stretch as you might think. The be careful what you wish for notion is literally the premise of the show, he says, and its at the core of every great horror movie.

His Blumhouses Fantasy Island, out Friday, takes its premise from the old ABC series, which ran from 1977 to 1984. Set on a mysterious tropical island, it features a dapper host named Mr. Roarke (Ricardo Montalbn), who escorted guests into their own tailor-made fantasies.

The original show was an anthology, Wadlow says. It had guest stars who were the leads each week Maureen McCormick, Michelle Phillips, Roddy McDowall, Sonny Bono, Cesar Romero, Annette Funicello and Leslie Nielsen among them.

I loved the original show, says Wadlow, 43. I remember it very well from when I was a kid. It had such a fun, mischievous energy. I love the way the writers played with the audience, the same way Mr. Roarke played with his guests.

The new film also features Roarke, now played by Michael Pea (The Mule), but does away with the best-known character, Tattoo (Herv Villechaize). In the last two seasons, Mr. Roarke had a different assistant, Wadlow points out, so he felt at liberty to create a new assistant character too (played by Parisa Fitz-Henley). He does include other shout-outs to the series for fans: The Colonial architecture, the seaplane. And we definitely have a character saying, The plane! Tattoos famous catchphrase.

Beyond that, Wadlows film begins with the series structure, but eventually goes rogue.

On the show, the storylines never crossed, says Wadlow, who also co-wrote the screenplay. They would have two fantasies, and it was done in a way that they could be cut into half-hour episodes and sold that way. His movie, which stars Maggie Q, Lucy Hale, Portia Doubleday and Ryan Hansen, sees several separate stories eventually entwine but not before each explores its own spin on twisted wish fulfillment.

What we did with each of our fantasies was, we identified a touchstone film, Wadlow says of the storylines. For [Hales character], Saw was the touchstone. Maggie Qs story is more of a Butterfly Effect or The Shining. The Ryan Hansen story starts out almost Weekend at Bernies, but turns very quickly into a home invasion vibe, like the first Purge.

Not surprisingly, Wadlows favorite TV episodes were the creepiest. I really remember the one where Roddy McDowall played the devil, he says. Also the one where a guest goes back to the Salem witch trials the ones where the sinister underpinnings are more evident.

Hes well aware that much of his movies audience wont know it has a TV precedent. And thats just fine. You can see the movie without ever having heard of the show and enjoy it, he says. But there are a bunch of Easter eggs, because we have such respect for the series.

He says hes proud to be working with classic 70s source material, rather than rebooting something recent: Were not just saying, Hey, remember that video game about a hedgehog?'

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How Blumhouse rebooted 'Fantasy Island' as a horror movie - New York Post

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero