Piñata: Survival island

I don't understand why this movie isn't on the Worst 100 list. I've seen 7 movies on that list, and this one is worse than any of those. If I gave a 10th grade class an assignment to create special effects and they turned in the ones in this movie, I might feel sorry enough for them to give them a D. I hope they didn't pay the special effects team more than $500. Not only are they embarrassing poor, the animated figure doesn't look like the costumed figured used in the close ups.

Meanwhile the acting is so stiff that one is left wondering if the final footage came from the 2nd or 3rd reading of the script. Or if the script was simply being written an hour before the filming.

If you are looking for a silly horror movie to watch with a group of friends for laughs, this is a very good candidate. On that scale, I would give it an 8.

from the very first frame of this 'movie' you can see you're watching some thing extraordinary. the introduction is so over the top you don't know if to laugh or cry. it's like a parody of the discovery channel, if you will.

on with the show. the lights turn on, the camera dives to sea level and shows us the usual pack of screaming American teenagers, this time travelling to gather underwear from a desert island (!). well, the island is not completely deserted, the two judges of the whole thing are waiting for the youth. the competition gets away, and everything goes fine, everyone looks pretty and is very cool (pot! ooh!). there's just this one little problem. the island they stormed into features a giant pinata, who gets pretty pis*ed off seeing all those screaming teens. my guess is the pinata was just trying to tell them to shut the he*l up so it could go back to sleep, but since the kids just scream more when they see it, it has no choice but to crack their skulls wide open and stuff their guts in there. tragic. tragic, indeed.

the computer animated pinata is a retarded idea in it self, but the horrible animation makes it even more hilarious. the actors aren't actually too bad, if not good either. the shaky spice goes a little over the top in her acting.

this movie has it all. pretty girls, tropical island, a miserably funny mtv-predator, a little gore even, the fact it all starts when the kids smoke pot, funny acting, stupid music, survivors feel, mcguyver end battle...it's horror but for all the wrong reasons, it's comedy...intended? perhaps, perhaps, not. it's trash, but it's fun, anyway!

I must say, this movie is a joke. From a distance, the plot sounds like a funny comedy from the 80's like "Weekend at Bernie's" or something. But as soon as you find out that this film is meant to be a serious horror flick, it officially becomes your first step towards the cliff dive that is "Demon Island" (or as some know it as, "Pinata: Survival Island"). A demonic piñata? Really? That's the best you could come up with? The "Wizard of Oz" has a more frightening plot (and at least that had attacking, flying monkeys. Now THAT will scare you).

What really put the icing on the cake for me, though, is the "special effects" that were used. Now, don't get me wrong, there were a few (and I use the term lightly) shots that I thought made the "monster" look kinda cool, but everything else just made it look like it came straight out of a Power Rangers movie. Seeing what the "monster's" vision looked like just made it worse. I was like watching a frame-by-frame video of a photo-negative kaleidoscope. About 3/4 of the time I couldn't even tell what was going on, making it look like just a giant mess of colors on the screen. I do have to applaud the effects artists for making things like the explosions look just like those from the terrorist shooting games in the arcade. Bravo.

Overall, I have to say this looks more like an attempt at a more grown-up version of the "Scooby-Doo" movie (especially the scene where they are being chased on the 4-wheelers, and if you've seen both movies, you'll know exactly what I mean). The only people I would recommend this film to are ones that are either really high or want a bad movie to laugh at.

Poor Nicholas Brendon. While his other Buffy castmates get to do theatrical films he is stuck in this straight to video abomination so awful everyone involved should actually be ashamed. The monster is particularly embarrassing--a computer generated thing that looks like it stepped out of a video game and almost never interacts with the live actors, making it seem even more fake. The idea of a killer Pinata might have offered some campy fun if the thing actually looked like a Pinata. The only film I've seen recently that was comparably dreadful was House of the Dead, which I actually walked out of when I was foolish enough to pay and see it in a theater. Movies like this really make you long for the return of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

College co-eds are stalked by an evil pinata in a tropical paradise! A premise like that could be the makings of a cult classic.

Alas, "Pinata: Survival Island" seems neither inspired nor clumsy enough to reach that status. The film DOES qualify as an obscure horror hoot, especially in the early scenes of the wicked pinata's reign of terror.

"Buffy"'s Nicholas Brendon is always a welcome presence, but there's little to his role here, compared with your average BtVS rerun.