Movie Review - Fear Island (2009)

 

Fear Island (2009)

 

As you'll find i've stated a few times within my couple of movie reviews that i seem to gravitate towards liking the more obscure and out there slasher/horror movies, i by no means like my movies tame but sometimes i come across a tame one, such as the way of this movie Fear Island, upon investigating this movie there wasnt alot about it out there, mainly just reviews on the IMBD.com website which 90% of the reviews pan this movie, now on further inspection i've found that this was actually a made for TV movie not even for cinema release or just a straight to DVD which now looking back completely explains it utter tameness.

 

So the basic story for this movie is 6 kids, 5 friends and a stow away head out to 'fear island' for one last gathering before they all go off on their seperate adventures after high school, its a very cabin in the woods isolated slash and stalk feel to this movie, its set up well in places an begins with what im asumming is FBI agents chasing a girl down in the woods and taking her back to civilization, she has amnesia and cant seem to remeber her name.

 

An FBI agent who is hell bent on finding out the truth is pushing her to tell him what happens, then in comes a psychologist forcing the FBI agent to let her shrink this girl into telling them what happened, and so we proceed to get the story in flash back form, normally flashbacks in these movies drive me mentally up the wall and make me want to throw things at my tv, it can be SO over done in the slasher genre, but somehow in this movie they to a extent made it work, you get all the right tid bits and back story, and you met all the charactors, and then the story unfolds as we go between the presences and the flashbacks of the Amnisea girl slowly remebering bits and pieces of what happened on the Island resulting in 5 dead teenagers.

 

 

I have to warn you this is a very tame "stalk and slash" infact i probably wouldn't even go so far as to call it slash, more just "stalk and Kill" the setting of the isolated island is quite pretty and the final girl Jenna played by Hayliee Duff caught me off gaurd she mirrors alot of what makes her sister more famous, she seemed to inhabited the same look and sound and feel as her sister, and she acted her part fair well to my surprise, it was also nice to see Lucy Hale before her Pretty Little Liars role though her part in the movie is a major part to the plot it seems to be played down a little which made the movie lose a little of its shine.

 

Also the big back story thats pivotal to the plot and whats happening on the island didn't even show itself till 3 quarters of the way through the movie, and as for the killings the most grafic was probably the boiled to death in the spa, it wasn't overly bloody in any aspects which i understand now that i know its a made for TV movie so therefore they had to make it pretty tame.

 

 

Honestly there is nothing spectacular or stand out or sensational about this movie, its by no means the kind of movie that will be in the relam of your Friday the 13th or Scream, but i did find enough to enjoy to be able to happily get through the movie, there is that big plot twist and role reversals between the Psychologist and the FBI agent who are both interiganting the only survior who has knowledge of what happened on the island, theres so much more i wanna say for this movie but most of it gives away a massive part of the movie and the ending, i did however pick up the ending about 20 odd minutes into the movie, and though i knew the ending and didnt get any surprise from it at the end, i still DID enjoy watching this movie.

 

this is probably the kind of tame foray into 'slash' ( i use that world lightly of course) that newbies might enjoy a watch its tame enough that there are no jump scares theres no blood guts and gore but there is a plot in there thats seemingly easy to follow, or it was for me anyway, i think its the kind of movie you have to watch with a grain of salt, dont over think this one, what you think is right is most likely just that, right.

 

There is alot that makes you 'face palm' it through out the movie, Jennas best friend bringing her yappy lil dog to the island, one of the guys seemingly feeding the dog tequila then kicking it out of the house so Jenna friend lose her shit about her dog being out in the woods, that then leads to them running around the woods trying to find this damn dog and of course finding the first dead body.

 

 

theres the silly scribblings of words like 'Evil' and 'innocent' scrawled on bodies and weird toys and on glass doors some of it you wont catch cause its scrawled so small on some little toy at the begining you barely have a chance to notice any significants till later on in the movie when the few remaining charactors discuss them, theres bear traps to the leg and death by snake bite, its all a bit of a giggle.

One moment i cheered happily was when they all realized someone was on the island trying to off them all they locked doors and bolted windows and armed themselves with weapons, and i laughed with glee happily when one of the guys comes wandering back into the room brandishing and nail gun i cheered happily for him, only to face palm it a few minutes later when he some how manages to drop the nail gun outside and run back inside without it and then killer shoots him with it, luckily not mortally wounding him, just wounding him enough to probably feel like somewhat of an idiot for losing his defence weapon, to the proceed to lose his life to a snake bite to the chest.

 

There isn't much more i can say about this movie, it goes a little bit longer then i think needed between the present day story and the flashback story telling the two plots in one seemed to push the movie into a long running time i believe, but even from all the bad reviews ive seen of it i really did not mind this made for tv movie at all, and i think thats what people need to remeber going into this one Its MADE FOR TV therefore its not going to be like sitting down to some R rated slasher flick with blood and guts flying everywhere, its more like watching a nice long episode of murder sher wrote theres abit a death and charatcors sleuthing and a sub plot to explain WHY the killings have occured and then the story being told by flash backs.

 

It can get a litte jumbled at times, but i managed through it with a satisfied smile on my face, i think it may be comforting for me to be scared but then laugh at something dumb someone does on screen and then it reminds me its not real, but dont fear, Fear Island is more of a Tame Fear Island, like spiders or snakes, they can be deadly but ya know, bug spray shovel to the head an they are dead !!!!

 

Give it a go, but dont hurt me cause its not a spectacular kind of movie, hell it was only 8 bucks on ebay so its a nice little addition to my collection and one that in a few years time i will probably have forgetten most of it and watch it again !!!!