jimdoyle111

Being the age I am I grew up with Hammer Horror and scares were provided by Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee and sometimes Vincent Price. I vaguely remember the TV show 'Fantasy Island' but I never watched it as it looked a bit naff, and in fact I watched the 2020 movie by accident and got a bit of a surprise as I was expecting something cheesy and fluffy popcorn fodder, but this was a hard punching heart stopping adventure with no holds barred that would make you choke on your popcorn.

A group of people with no obvious connection get to relive moments from the past to see how things would have panned out if they had been a little more decisive or courageous or they get to exact revenge or just generally party - but the results they get are not what they get and soon there is a bizarre and violent game of cat and mouse taking place. Don't read the blurb - just let the film wash over you and take it as it comes and you'll get a few surprises and one or two shocks and you'll keep on watching.

Considering this is a horror, it is good at engaging emotions and the ending is a blissful combination of happiness and sadness. Maybe I always had a fantasy that one day I would watch a good horror film about 'Fantasy Island' and the cast and crew have made it all come true.

This is not so much a Kojak episode as Theo only gets a few minutes screen time. This is a tryout for a new cop show set in Las Vegas with Vincent Gardenia (who played a similar hard boiled New York cop the previous year in 'Death Wish') . A stronger than usual cast with Eileen Brennan and Jeff Corey - the man who taught Hollywood how to act - but the story never rises above adequate and giving us an insight into Vincent's domestic circumstances - he moved to Vegas to look after his sister's clever I-want-to-be-a-cop-one-day kid after she died - slows down the action and looks like its there to soften the harshness of what otherwise have been a hard hitting wham bam series. Las Vegas photographs beautifully as ever and Gardenia is always excellent. But Kojak fans will be disappointed.