Headscratchers / Fantasy Island (2020)

• Why does Melanie get two fantasies? Obviously the first one - her revenge on Sloane - is something of a Red Herring to confuse audiences as to who the real villain is, but given how the Island is stated to work why does Melanie get revenge on Sloane (who was in no way connected to her crush's death), on top of revenge on everyone who she believes to be responsible for Nick dying?
  • It may be that her overall fantasy was to get revenge on everyone she perceived as having contributed to her current state, with Sloane's bullying having defined her psychologically while the others contributed to her current personal state.
  • This is supported by her recollection of the night of Nick's death, as Melanie was thinking specifically of how Sloane always made her feel worthless. Given her psychosis, she could easily have created a link between the characters who had a "direct" role in Nick's death and Sloane's past bullying as they all contributed to her current emotional state.

• We learn throughout the film that the main reason all the other fantasies are being twisted is because Melanie brought them all here to take revenge on them for the death of Nick. However, Damon has no connection to Melanie, yet he tells both Melanie and Sloane that his own fantasy of his daughter being alive again got twisted by the island which is why he's so wary of everything the island does now and wants to expose it so badly now. So, why was his fantasy twisted into something dark? Melanie didn't even know he existed before the events.
  • It may be that Damon's fantasy got twisted due to some flawed interpretation of his wish in a similar manner to Roarke's wish for his wife to be back resulting in her being recreated still dying of her illness.
  • The island is also limited in scope. The fantasy it grants are only real within the island and as long as you stay on the island. While Roarke turned it into a deal with the island, Damon might have seen it as a trap and the island being willingly cruel.

• Why does everyone act like the cop is such an asshole for not wanting to go into the fire to save Nick? He was not a firefighter and they were waiting on the firefighters to arrive. What was this cop supposed to do, shoot at the fire with his gun? He most likely would've died as well if he had went in there.
  • I mean, most of the characters are too busy fighting for their lives to pass judgement on his actions. The only two blaming him for that are himself, who left his job out of guilt to stay behind a desk, and Melanie, who isn't exactly shown to be sound of judgement, to put it kindly.
    • As an additional point in his defence, we only see him directly decline to go in to rescue Nick in Gwen's attempted fantasy; it may be that in the true course of events he never even knew there was anybody in the building to rescue in the first place until after the fire was dealt with.