Fantasy Island movie takes a cue from the darker 1970-80s TV episodes

It all comes down to a single maxim: Be careful what you wish for.

As often as not, in Fantasy Island’s seven seasons and 152 episodes, audiences never could be quite sure what Ricardo Montalban’s exotic island host Mr. Roarke was up to in his attempts to fulfill the desires of his exclusive guests on the remote Fantasy Island. Sometimes that meant taking guests back to relive their worst nightmares. So now that horror film company Blumhouse has their mitts on the franchise, it’s anyone’s guess what is in store. At a minimum, the trailer for the new movie Fantasy Island looks like an easy to cultivate new horror franchise. The horror movie industry has demonstrated the darker the franchise, the more big money it makes. But for every The Conjuring, Saw, Paranormal Activity, Halloween, The Ring, Friday the 13th, or Nightmare on Elm Street series of movies, there’s the nearly successful horror sub-genre that includes a little less dark takes, more often with laughs, like Scream, Scary Movie, Final Destination, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Happy Death Day. Where will the victims, er, guests of Fantasy Island land?

Michael Peña (Ant Man) steps into the shoes of Montalban as Mr. Roarke. Don’t look for the sidekick character Tattoo in this reboot–that role seems to have gone to Parisa Fitz-Henley (Luke Cage) as Julia. Jeff Wadlow, Kick-Ass 2 director, and producer of The Strain and Bates Motel, is directing the picture, billed as a comedy/horror/mystery (putting it in the Scream camp?). Other cast includes Lucy Hale (Katy Keene, Bionic Woman, Scream 4), Maggie Q (Nikita), Portia Doubleday (Carrie, Mr. ROBOT), Ryan Hansen (Veronica Mars), Charlotte McKinney (Flatliners, Baywatch), and Austin Stowell (Colossal). Michael Rooker (Guardians of the Galaxy, Eight Men Out, Tombstone) is said to be in this, too, but isn’t in the first trailer.