Fear Island

source: Fear Island

A small group of teens on an island is murdered, one by one. Professionally made and attractively photographed, this murder mystery / slasher horror is routine, utterly predictable, and totally devoid of thrills. Its one claim to mild originality is the way it is told in flashback by the amnesiac last survivor. Unfortunately, by its very nature, this robs the "last man standing" element of any suspense, leaving us to discover only the order and manner of deaths, the reason why, and the expected final twist. This is not "the worst film I have ever seen" - far from it - but it has nothing out of the ordinary to recommend it.

Fear Island starts as Jenna (Haylie Duff) is found alone on an island by the police, all of her friends have been murdered & back on the mainland Detective Armory (Martin Cummins) has her as the number one suspect. However psychiatrist Dr. Chalice (Anne Marie DeLuise) feels Armory is being too hard on Jenna who has suffered immense strain & is still grieving over her dead friends but with six murdered teens to explain Armory wants answers, at first Jenna doesn't remember much but soon she starts to tell the story of what took place on the island & how her friends were murdered by a seemingly mysterious killer. As Jenna explains the events Armory changes his opinion & feels sorry for Jenna but Dr. Chalice notices that her story doesn't quite add up & that not all is as it seems... This Canadian production was directed by Michael Storey & is a typically dull made for telly murder mystery affair with the overall feel of a teen slasher, unfortunately Fear Island never really delivers in either aspect. The script has all the teen slasher clichés like the young group of friends who head off to some isolated location for fun & find themselves being bumped off by some killer in what is pretty bad even for the sub-genre but the teen slasher angle is based around a murder mystery as the sole survivor retells her story & the events unfold with no great surprises until the double twist ending which I have to admit I guessed, I'm not just saying that either I did guess the exact twist ending with about fifteen minutes to go. I can't say it worked that well, things don't really add up & for the cops not to at least check this girls identity is just difficult to believe & quite how Jenna knew all the information she did is also a mystery, I mean how did she know that Meagan's parents would be away? Why let herself get caught by the police in the first place? Who called the police anyway? Why did the kids keep splitting up when a killer was running around? I mean the excuse to look for the girls Dog is flimsy at best, I suspect the Dog searching reason was laziness on the writers part. I mean would you run around the woods looking for a Dog if you knew a brutal killer was on the loose? No, I wouldn't either but the character's in Fear Island have no problem with the concept. At just over 80 minutes long Fear Island does tend to drag at times, I can't say I was ever enthralled by it or cared about what was going on & the lack of any memorable kills & an underwhelming twist ending means I would find it hard to recommend Fear Island & I can't say I would ever want to see it again. Fear Island looks nice enough in a forgettable but nice enough sort of way, the cast are all obscenely handsome as you would expect & it's well made for what it is. There's not much horror here to be honest & the film concentrates on the mystery aspects more, the kills are really lazy & unimaginative which hurt it. Most of them are off screen & feature little in the way of blood, a bit of blood splatter is as gory as it gets. This being a made for telly flick there's no sex or nudity either. The IMDb says Fear Island had a budget of about $4,000,000 which it total rubbish, there's no way this cost that much. Filmed in Vancouver in Canada. The acting is alright, it's not as bad as it could have been & as I said the cast are suitably easy on the eye. Minor celebrity Haylie Duff stars. Fear Island is a teen slasher with a fairly basic murder mystery tacked on, I can't say it's particularly brilliant but it's well made & if you don't guess the twist ending like I did then it might surprise you, but I doubt it & there are still a few things which don't feel right or add up properly. The lack of blood, gore & nudity doesn't help either. Not the worst film ever made I suppose but far from the best.

Pierre died because of our sins, but he remains alive in our hearts. I couldn't watch the movie, because I accidentally burned my house down with a molotov cocktail, do I just had to guess the whole story by looking at the funny pictures on the backside of my Dvd box. Tim Allen is awful.

Six friends ( plus a stowaway) go on a weekend getaway to a deserted island and find themselves at the mercy of a killer. The question is who is the killer? The premise is hardly original but then how many films are these days. The film is shown in flashback which to be honest I found a little irritating at the start but in the end I felt it worked. The characters/victims are the normal cannon fodder you would expect to find in a movie like this and at times it all feels a little predictable and I felt I'd seen some scenes before even though I hadn't. There is a lack of gore in the film although there are a number of good tense scenes and some wince inducing moments. For all it's obvious flaws there are enough nice touches to keep up your interest level and it has a nice twist ending. Although it's certainly no ground breaker it's an easy film to watch which makes it ideal for a Saturday night with a few beers. Overall I enjoyed this film and it's worth watching on the basis that you don't expect too much.

I try to find something to say about most films, but with Fear Island, I have to warn you that this 'review' will be pretty short. It's hard to imagine a more 'average' film than this. I do like a daft 'slasher' flick as much as the next gore-hound, but this brought absolute zero to the genre. I know all slasher movies have had the bar raised in 1997 by Scream, but at least some try to be original. Fear Island is about a group of friends who go to stay on an island and mysteriously start getting picked off one by one. Hopefully, this won't spoil too much when I say that the film opens with one traumatised girl being found on said island by the authorities. The film then consists of her account of what happened to her friends to a police detective and criminal psychologist. I found that this kind of tells you most of what you need to know about the film. You never have to guess who will survive as you already know that from the start. Normally, you may at least get a few amusing/interesting/disgusting kills. Not here. There's hardly any gore and what little there is comes few and far between. I know that no one expects an Oscar-worthy performance in a teen slasher film, but, seriously, the killer might as well be hunting trees since the actors are so wooden (even 'Jinx' from Warehouse 13 can't elevate it at all). Then there's the most clichéd detective ever to be put on film who's in charge of the (meagre) investigation. He spends most of his time barking stilted dialogue at an unfeasibly attractive, intelligent and calm psychologist. Some film you can watch if you're bored. However, this is not even one of them. If you like slasher films and are in the mood to sit through one. My advice would be to put one of your own DVDs on. This one isn't worth the time. http://thewrongtreemoviereviews.blogspot.co.uk/

(Contains spoilers) Unless im missing something here everyone involved in this movie did not give any effort to solving the so called mystery. The script does not work in anyway unless you decide not to do things that anyone trying to solve a case would do. They had a picture of the believed "Meghan" all along and were able to see that Jenna(Duff) and Ashton never dated. So why were they not able to verify anyones true identity. Were there no school photos or anything to look at and see that someone is not who they say they are. If they were able to get a headshot of "meghan" was there no name attached to it. I mean they simply just listened to a crazy girls story without trying to verify anyones identity. The only way the movie works is if you believe that there was no way to verify anyones true identity and not find peoples true family connections. They were able to find Jennas parents but couldn't find the real sister. The whole movie makes no sense and they basically just sat around and listened to a girl talk and then let her go. It was a bad movie with an unbelievable plot.

Now I hadn't heard of this until yesterday but I thought I would give it a watch. Most films like this, the ones with a slightly moronic title and a sort of cliché storyline, are terrible. I was pretty damn wrong. You know the general idea of the film, based on the summary above or perhaps you have seen the trailer. Now, while it has the kind of plot you expect from most horror/thriller movies these days, it seems different somehow. I do like their approach to this storyline. They didn't make it blatantly obvious from the beginning that they should have a reason to get away to the island, kind of thing. It does jump back and forth in time quite a bit, as i'm sure has been said in other reviews but its pretty easy to keep up with. I would have given this film a 9, however, the ending has left me wondering something and its bothering me... I don't want to say too much in case I ruin it. If you watch it then maybe you will figure it out. Or you could write on one of my other posts, I have lists on here which you could write on and ask me. It probably sounds stupid but I don't want to ruin it for those who don't want to know. Either way, I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome of the film. While the ending was sort of expected, the entire movie also had the ability to doubt yourself and make you think something completely different was happening. So yeah I thought it was awesome =D The rating for this movie might not be great but I think its better than what its been given. It all depends on your expectancy of the film. If your expectations are too high, then this would probably suck. But give it a go anyway, you'll never know if you like it if you don't watch it.

**SPOILERS*** Brain twisting slasher flick that runs out of gas halfway through its story when you start to realize that the only survivor of a massacre on Fear Island is on the verge of being committed.The survivor Jenna, Hayfie Duff,was found wondering aimlessly around the deserted island with a bloody knife on her. Having no memory of what happened and even whom she is Jenna is interrogated by both local detective Amory, Martin Cummins, and police psychiatrist Dr. Jamie Chalice, Anne Marie DeLuise. Suspcted in the brutal murder of six collage students on the island as well as their pet dog Perrier Jenna's memory slowly starts to come back in a series of episodes or flashbacks where we as well as Det. Amory and Dr. Chalice start to make some sense of this tragedy. The only problem is that they have to take Jenna's word on what happened to the students since no one else is alive collaborate it! As the movie goes on or plods along that suddenly almost out of the blue a new element or character is added to it in the young girl Regina, Brenna O'Brien. It's Regina who turns out to be the key to what happened in the movie but as we soon find out she's been killed off before the film even started! It was Regina's death that set into motion the series of brutal murders on the island. But who committed them only Jenna in her subconscious mind knows. And as her memory starts to return she'll be able to identify who the killer is that's if the killer doesn't get to her first! ***SPOILERS**** The big surprise is saved for the very end when Jenna's parents who were on a trip to Cambodia came to the hospital to visit their very disturbed and heavily medicated daughter. It's then that the whole truth came out to what Jenna knew about the string of killings as well as who she really is. But by then most of us watching had figured that all out making the big and unexpected "surprise ending" anti-climatic.

I'm a person who likes TV movies, but if they're cheesy and horribly acted i usually turn off the t.v. Not in this case. I watched it with my brother last night and he loved it! (odd. He never likes my type of movies) This movie drew me in from the beginning. The music was amazing and the suspense even more. Haylie Duff proves that she's a great actress and the supporting casts are pretty good too. As a Christian, I'm not fond of cursing and sexual content in movies, but it was manageable and nothing graphic. Teenage stuff. The twist at the end was awesome. I have to watch this movie again just to make sure. In the end, it's a really good movie. I highly recommend it to people who could handle a little suspense.