Blumhouse Studios, home of the Conjuring series, announced last year it planned to remake late ’70s television show Fantasy Island into a horror feature. The original starred Mexican actor Ricardo Montalban as the mysterious Mr. Roarke, who helps visitors live out their fantasies. Suffice it to say, the series was more fantastical and comedic than what Blumhouse is cooking up, according to its latest trailer.
In it, we see the series’ shadowy origins go full-tilt. It begins by introducing a group of four visitors who are on the island to live out their dreams, whether that’s “revenge on a childhood bully” or having a reunion with someone who has died. Mexican-American actor Michael Peña plays an updated Mr. Roarke, who – as we see through rapid shots at the trailer’s conclusion – might be more duplicitous than he initially seems.
With Ariana Grande’s “7 Rings” in the background, the trailer emphasizes how Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island’s party atmosphere eventually transitions into something sinister; eventually, everyone’s fantasies goes wrong. “People die here,” someone off-screen says. We see running, screaming and murder in the jungle. The group begins to realize that they’re not there to play out their own fantasies, but someone else’s. Peña leads a cast that includes Lucy Hale and Parisa Fitz-Henley playing a new take on Roarke’s sidekick, Tattoo, initially played back in 1977 by Herve Villechaize.
The show might seem hokey, especially through a 2020 lens, so it’s interesting to see the premise turned into a dark and frightening (and murdery) tale. Check out the trailer below.
Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island hits theaters February 14, 2020.