Fantasy Island | 2020 | PG-13 | – 4.5.5

Why is “Fantasy Island” rated PG-13? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “violence, terror, drug content, suggestive material and brief strong language” (please note that this is not a review of the unrated video version). The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes an implied sex scene, a few kissing scenes, swimwear that reveals partial nudity, and many cleavage revealing outfits; many scenes of terror and uncertainty of what is real and what might be imagined, several violent encounters with people ending up wounded or dead with some bloody wounds shown, and many scenes of people seeming to be dead and reviving to be seen in another scene; and at least 1 F-word and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.”

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A twist on the TV show “Fantasy Island” (1977-1984): The mission of the owner of a remote tropical vacation island (Michael Peña) is to make all the dreams of his guests come true. However, when dreams turn into terrifying nightmares, the guests must figure out how they can save their own lives. Also with Lucy Hale, Maggie Q, Portia Doubleday, Charlotte McKinney and Michael Rooker. Directed by Jeff Wadlow. [Running Time: 1:50]

Fantasy Island SEX/NUDITY 4

 – A man and a woman lie under bed covers and his bare chest is visible along with her shoulders (sex is implied). Brief footage on a screen shows a man and a woman sitting on a bed as they begin to unbutton their shirts (the scene ends). A man and a woman embrace, kiss briefly and embrace again. A man and a woman kiss for a few seconds.
► A man at a crowded pool party is provided with four men for company (no sexual activity is shown). People at a crowded pool party dance and writhe to loud music. Two men do pelvic thrusts as part of a secret handshake.
► A woman says to a group, “He can bungalow with me.” A man asks a woman, “How’s your sex life?” and receives no answer.
► Several scenes in a crowded pool party feature 50 or more women wearing skimpy bikinis and high heels (we see cleavage, backs and abdomens and some bare buttocks); several bare-chested men wear trunks or Speedos. A few women wear V-necked tops that reveal cleavage in several scenes and one woman wears legless shorts with a tube top under a jacket, baring her abdomen. A woman wears a crop top that shows her abdomen and cleavage. A woman wears a bikini top that reveals cleavage.

Fantasy Island VIOLENCE/GORE 5

 – Four armed men wear masks in several scenes (one of the masks is the clown from “It” and the others are skulls and red devils): masked men shoot many bullets at people but miss in several scenes, and are shot or stabbed in turn; they do not bleed until a close-up shows each one with blood gushing from the mask eyeholes or pouring from under the chin of the mask and each of them gets up to attack people again; victims actually shot include a man grazed in the upper arm with some blood spotting his sleeve, a man shot from the back through the middle chest where we see a red spot before he falls dead, and an armed man is shot twice and we do not see blood flow but he falls dead. Men and women struggle over a hand grenade, remove the pin and reinsert it; a man drops it into a fountain (it does not explode), sea snakes rise up and change into a dark figure that grabs a woman and takes her under water, resurfaces to toss the grenade to the floor and then stays underwater while a man jumps to cover the grenade and the screen turns white, indicating an explosion and then we hear that the man died.
► A woman enters a dark control room and a light comes on, she pushes a switch on a board and a glass case illuminates to show a crying woman gagged and tied to a chair and the first woman throws switches to shock the victim and then pour water over her until a man wearing a surgical mask and long apron enters the glass room, takes a wide knife and cuts the victim’s arm as she screams (we see no blood and a cloth bandage is wrapped around the arm for the rest of the film); the man pulls down his mask to show metal sutures across his mouth as the control operator shocks the man, pours water over him at the same time and he falls dead (he shows up in several more scenes, apparently unable to be killed); the control operator breaks the glass room with a chair, shattering its walls and she and the other woman argue. A screaming woman runs through the woods into a large house and answers a ringing phone after crouching behind a desk when she is grabbed and pulled out from under the desk as she screams more loudly; she is dragged across the floor and out of the frame (we see the dragging scene again later on a monitor in a control room). A woman leaves an area and a woman that looks like her follows her, clings to a ceiling in a cave, and drops down to confront the first woman with a sneer; they wrestle and the lookalike falls and disappears.
► A man with a machete surprises a younger man in the woods as another man shoots at them and misses, the first man confronts two women in the woods and leads them to a cave where they find a fountain and leave the cave when another man grabs one of the women and throws her to the ground; the first man fistfights with him for several seconds, tackles him and they fall off a cliff (we briefly see the two men from an angle, looking limp and dead and no blood is evident) below the cliff (one of the men reappears in other scenes).
► A young girl says that she killed her dad and we see him covered in third-degree burns and glowing red patches on face, arms, and hands (the patches fall off to show another man), and the woman argues briefly with the man and the scene ends. A woman enters another dimension and finds her apartment bathed in tall roaring flames as the ceiling falls in and a man in the room above shouts for help; the woman tries to get through to him, she runs upstairs but the door is stuck and goes back to her own fiery kitchen and pulls out a handgun as she collapses and a woman outside this dimension reaches in and pulls her out of the scene. A man wearing a surgical mask appears in a cave, punches two women in the face, grabs them and forces them to go to a fountain (we see dirt and some blood on the women’s faces) where they watch as images of a teen girl and men and women appear with blood pouring out of their eyes. A man in a shallow cave river is surrounded by water snakes that turn into many hands that pull him under the water; they then gather and turn into the man’s father and the two men fight until the younger man holds the snake-man underwater to kill him. A man in a cave passage meets his deceased brother whose chest is covered in blood and the bloody man berates the other man before disappearing. A man encounters his now-deceased father as a younger man and argues with him; they scuffle and choke each other and the younger man points a rifle as the scene ends.
► A man dreams that he is stabbed and wakes up gasping; later he tells a soldier, “You died saving your men.” A man pretends that he is cutting another man’s hand off below the frame and the man screams as the first man laughs. A man stabs another man in the stomach, no blood flows and the second man does not die. A man locks three other men into a room and shoots an assault rifle from outside through the door, making a large hole and felling one of the men in the room (we see blood gushing from his mask and he revives unharmed). A man shoots a soldier in the face and we see no blood as the victim falls. A woman appears to stab a man below the frame four times, but he appears fine in the next seen. A woman wakes up to find that she is married, has a four-year-old daughter and sees pictures of the girl from infancy to age four. A man wearing rags appears and disappears quickly in a scene.
► Armed men shoot a mortar into a low flying seaplane, blowing it up. Armed men shoot a mortar at people on a beach and miss. Four masked men point assault rifles at people near a cave fountain until they and a man wearing a surgical mask disintegrate and disappear. Two women pick up iron pipes as weapons but do not swing them. A man rides a jet ski in a swimming pool at a party, coming dangerously close to spectators. A man trips another man.
► Two men find a panic room in their hotel suite and a weapons room behind the panic room; it contains assault rifles, ammo, baseball bats, Billy clubs, grenades and knives.
► A man argues sternly in different scenes with two women and two men. Different pairs of women argue for several seconds in half a dozen scenes and a few scenes feature two men arguing briefly. A man and a woman argue in two scenes over the telephone, and the woman crying. A woman says that she was bullied in high school and bullies poured toilet bowl water over someone’s head.
► A woman has a bloody nose and wipes it on a hanky. A woman coughs continually in two scenes and in the second scene we hear that she will die. A man’s wedding ring disintegrates and the pieces float up out of the frame, indicating that his wife died. A woman says that she caused an accidental fire that killed a man. Blood drips from the ceiling along a hallway to a portal and in one scene the drips have become larger pools of blood staining the floor.

Fantasy Island LANGUAGE 5

 – At least 1 F-word, 4 obscene hand gestures, 7 scatological terms, 3 anatomical terms, 14 mild obscenities, name-calling (crazy, creepy, stupid, racist, punks, psycho soccer freak, Malibu Barbie), exclamations (shut-up, I swear), 12 religious exclamations (e.g. Oh My God, God, Holy [scatological term deleted]). | profanity glossary |

Fantasy Island SUBSTANCE USE

 – A man says hallucinogens have been added to hotel water and we hear later that “magic water” was placed into the water system and that drinking it lets one see the truth, and a man says that he would rather switch to CBD. Several men and women at a pool party drink from champagne glasses and bottles while others sip cocktails and whiskey, a few scenes show island guests drinking umbrella cocktails and a Martini in front of the main building and on a beach, a restaurant scene shows men and women seated at tables with glasses of wine in front of them and one woman sips her wine, and several men and women drink shots of clear liquor in a small room.

Fantasy Island DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Relationships, families, mind-game playing, bullying, power, control, aggression, death, loss, regret, feeling guilty, living in the past, solving a mystery, making amends, sacrifice, letting go, mysteries, shape shifters, changing the past.

Fantasy Island MESSAGE

 – Live your life without regrets.