Forgotten Island (2026) Movie Trailer, Plot Analysis, and DreamWorks vs Blumhouse Clarification
Let’s clear something up first. If you landed here because someone on a forum insisted Forgotten Island is a Blumhouse horror movie, I get it. The title sounds like a found-footage nightmare, and the trailer has a few creepy moments. But it’s a DreamWorks Animation movie, distributed by Universal, and it’s rated PG. It’s also the studio’s 50th animated feature, which is a big milestone to hang on a brand-new original story.
It hits theaters this Friday, September 25, 2026, so here’s everything I think you should know before you buy a ticket (and pack tissues).
The Pitch That Got Me
Jo and Raissa are best friends who’ve been glued together since grade school. It’s the 1990s, and they’ve just graduated. Raissa is heading across the ocean to Caltech, a plan her parents made, and Jo is staying behind and refusing to deal with it.
Before any magic shows up, the movie has already given you the most relatable kind of heartbreak: the slow, quiet end of a childhood friendship. Nobody’s dying and there’s no villain yet. Two people are just about to be in different time zones, and both know it.
So the girls try to make their last night count, stumble through a glowing portal, and land on Nakali, a hidden world that turns out to be the “Forgotten Island” of the title.
Here’s Where It Gets Brutal
Nakali is gorgeous, but it feeds on the minds of the people trapped there. The longer you stay, the more memories you lose.
And the way out is the cruelest part: opening the portal home costs Jo and Raissa every memory they share. They can escape, but they’ll arrive back in the real world as strangers with no idea they were ever best friends.
I’ve seen plenty of animated movies use memory loss as a plot device, but few turn it into a direct metaphor for something everyone has lived through. Every one of us has a friend we used to be inseparable with, and now we just like each other’s photos once a year. Forgotten Island takes that quiet fade and makes it a literal ticking clock. That’s a smart, slightly evil piece of writing.
The Folklore Is the Real Star
This is the part I’m most excited about. The film draws on Philippine mythology, and the creatures on Nakali are the ones the girls grew up hearing about from their elders. Here’s what the trailers and featurettes show so far:
- Raww the Weredog (Dave Franco): a sweet, chaotic werewolf-dog and the girls’ first guide. His running gag is that he can’t control his transformations, and he shifts at random instead of on a full moon. He’s clearly the comic relief, and I’m already bracing for him to say something devastating in the third act.
- Tikbalang and Kapre: humanoid horse creatures and giant tree-dwellers. They show up in the background as regular citizens of Nakali, which I love. They’re neighbors here, not monsters of the week.
- The Manananggal: the main antagonist, and the reason the horror crowd got confused.
If you don’t know the Manananggal, it’s a legendary creature from Filipino horror stories. It’s a vampire-like being that splits its upper body from its lower half and flies through the night on bat-like wings. It’s properly terrifying, and DreamWorks decided to put it in a PG movie. Respect.
In the film, the Manananggal is the force behind (or at least speeding up) the theft of memories on the island, which makes her the perfect villain for this story. She isn’t after treasure or the throne. She’s coming for the girls’ history together.
Casting: Yes, That Lea Salonga
Let’s talk about the voice cast, because it’s stacked.
| Character | Voice | Why It Works |
|---|---|---|
| Jo | H.E.R. | Grammy and Oscar winner in her big voice-acting turn, playing the stubborn, fiercely loyal one |
| Raissa | Liza Soberano | Voices the academically driven best friend torn between family duty and Jo |
| Raww | Dave Franco | Perfect fit for a hapless weredog who’s trying his best |
| The Manananggal | Lea Salonga | Tony-winning legend playing the villain |
| Supporting cast | Manny Jacinto, Jenny Slate, Ronny Chieng, Jo Koy, Dolly de Leon | Comedy and personality depth across the island |
I keep coming back to the Lea Salonga casting. She’s one of the most beloved voices in Filipino entertainment, and she’s playing a nightmare creature from Filipino folklore. It’s such a great bit of casting that I’m hoping she gets a song. Please, DreamWorks. Just one villain number.
The Look: Anime Energy, DreamWorks Confidence
The directors, Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado, are the team behind Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. If you saw that movie, you know it broke away from the standard glossy 3D look and went for something painterly and snappy. The Bad Guys did similar work before it.
Forgotten Island pushes that further, with a style inspired by 1990s anime: expressive faces, kinetic action lines, and neon colors that make Nakali feel trippy and unstable, which suits an island that’s messing with your memory. The 1990s setting gives the whole thing a nostalgic edge, and the animation style feels like a love letter to the cartoons of that era.
Producer Mark Swift is on board too, and if Puss in Boots 2 is any indication, this team knows how to make an animated movie that’s funny and hits you in the gut in the same scene.
The Soundtrack Is a Bigger Deal Than You’d Think
The film features tracks from SB19 and BINI, two of the biggest names in Pinoy Pop (P-pop). It’s a small detail, but it says a lot. This isn’t a movie borrowing Filipino culture as decoration. It’s putting current Filipino music in a major Hollywood animated release, and that’s a big deal for the fans who’ve been waiting for it.
Is Forgotten Island (2026) Worth Watching in Theaters? Deep-Dive Review and Audience Response
Quick Facts
- Release date: September 25, 2026 (US, wide theatrical)
- Runtime: 1 hour, 49 minutes
- Rating: PG
- Studio: DreamWorks Animation / Universal Pictures
- Genre: Fantasy adventure comedy
- Setting: The 1990s, plus the hidden world of Nakali
My Honest Take
I’ll be upfront: I haven’t seen the whole movie, so this is based entirely on trailers, featurettes, and the premise. But the premise alone is doing serious work.
What sells me is that the emotional stakes come before the fantasy. The movie doesn’t need a portal to make you care about Jo and Raissa. It already gave you two friends who are scared of growing apart, and then it added a magic island that makes that fear physical. That’s a smart way to build an animated fantasy, and it’s why I think this could hit as hard as the best DreamWorks films.
The one thing I’m watching for is tone. Mixing a memory-eating purgatory, a flying torso monster, and a weredog who can’t control himself is a big swing. If it balances the funny and the frightening the way The Last Wish did with its own Death character, we’re in for something special. If it wobbles, it could feel like three movies stitched together.
Still, I’m going in optimistic. Bring a friend, and maybe don’t sit next to them if you’re the type who cries at movies. You’ll want to remember this one together.
