Lavinia Ross

a ‘never coming home’ intro

about Lavinia:

~ Lavina Jocie Ross

~ she/her pronouns

~ 16 years old

~ a ball of constantly moving energy

~ high strung and very brave

vibes:

~ peach colours and old postcards

~ random bits of lace and a bottle cap collection

~ piano music played in constant crescendo

~ the feeling you get at the top of a rollercoaster

~ Hammerhead by Penelope Scott

~ that vine where Kermit the frog sings in a car

excerpt:

Lavinia bounced on the balls of her feet and chewed on her knuckles at the same time. Despite her normally talkative nature, Lavinia listened to shouting match for a few moments. She took her knuckles out of her mouth just long enough to comment.

Although Fantasy Island is a complete disaster, if you squint and read between the lines, you can see how this might’ve worked... as a TV show, in the '70s. The plot is contrived, the characters unlikeable, the scares non-existent and as the picture ends with the promise of more to come, you’ll roll your eyes in exasperation.

Police officer Patrick Sullivan (Austin Stowell), stepbrothers JD (Ryan Hansen) and Brax (Jimmy O. Yang), Gwen Olsen (Maggie Q), and Melanie (Lucy Hale) have won a vacation on Fantasy Island, where their host, Mr. Roarke (Michael Peña) will give them each one fantasy. They pay no heed to his warning that once in motion, a fantasy must play out to its logical end, assuming what’s about to happen will be perfectly harmless, but that’s far from the case.

As soon as the five guests step out of the plane, you know you’re in trouble. The brothers are unbearable, the cop is only beginning to ask questions now, Melanie is drawing a lot of attention to herself for reasons you don't understand. The only person you can stand is Gwen. When they step inside the resort and take a look at the staff - all apparently hired for their ability to look creepy and ominous - you know something fishy is afoot but they're oblivious to the warnings. In their defense, the island's rules are inconsistent from scene-to-scene. Sometimes, the landmass provides, sometimes it doesn’t. Melanie’s fantasy is to get revenge upon a childhood bully (Portia Doubleday). She’s real, but her demonic torturer is supernatural. Does this mean Roarke imported a horde of supermodels to please partiers JD and Brax, or are they also full of black, oozing liquid?

In theory, this would be a horror-comedy. I think. The scares director Jeff Wadlow subjects you to are about as terrifying as a sack of chips. The jokes will leave you cringing and thankful to be watching the movie in the dark. Mostly, Fantasy Island is about showing you freaky scenarios and twisting what your idea of a good time might be. “Be careful what you wish for” and so on but whenever something goes awry, it feels like a cheat. It isn’t the guests who do something bad, it’s the island that crowbars misfortune into their dream come true. There are revelations towards the end that should make you go “Ah!” But instead, they raise so many questions. Now, several previous actions make no sense and when we’re given explanations, they’re unconvincing. We sat through all this bad dialogue and all these dull plot lines to get to this? What a waste of time.

It takes a superhuman effort to care about anything in Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island. You don’t even get decent gore or kills. It isn’t even bad in a memorable fashion, which means you’ll have to wrack your brain to properly articulate to anyone who asks why it filled you with misery. (Theatrical version on the big screen, February 15, 2020)

Writing is Weird - Never Coming Home

A bit I wrote yesterday at noon

The sounds that tore through the air were horrible. Everyone’s hands shot to their ears but that did little to muffle the noise. Even as she ran, Corrie couldn’t help but empathize with whatever creature had made those noises.

The exact same bit I rewrote at 3:00 am

The noises that rose from the docks were agonizing. On instinct everyone’s hands shot up to cover their ears, though it did almost nothing to stop the sounds from raking across their brains like cracked and rotting fingernails.

Corrie found she couldn’t help but empathize with whatever burnt husk of soul produced those screams. Some tiny part of her brain wanted to help. Not enough to stop her from running.