Survival Island

I think the introduction was the best part of the movie. Yes, that part where you have to be spoon fed an explanation about you are seeing (because the director thinks it's a novel idea!) Plainly, no one actually needs this explanation. I think it makes good decoration.

One thing surprised me. The visuals of the "natives" and their relationship to the piñata were interesting to watch, "most" of the time. The quality of the whole thing had that professionally rehearsed quality that you beg for in a cartoon.

If it weren't for that introduction, I may have not stayed over the 15 minute mark to see what this movie was all about.

The transition from the actually better-than-it-deserved intro-music to the MINDLESS GRUNGE sound of those inane rock guitars was my first indication that I was about to turn this movie off in a few minutes.

Then, the water gun games between the rafts. Wow, that was so compelling. The minutes were ticking. My palms were getting wet and sticky. But I forged on!

Then came the earth-shattering character development scene about a Port-O-Potty! I was breathless with anticipation. What could they think of next?

Then, believe it or not! That grungy music again! Oh, I was captivated!

After this, I had to make a life-changing decision. Would I stay or go?

OK...I stayed. Then, more character development about young people smoking pot. Folks, this was deep! You gotta believe me, here!

Then, of course comes the discovery of the awe-inspiring Piñata from hell! What does our hero do? He hits it with a stick, of course! What else would any self-respecting dude-about-town do in a situation like this?

And then.......

YOU GUESSED IT! YES!

IT came to LIFE!

And then why NOT spoil it? The rest of the plot resembles the Friday the 13th genre, of course. Pick them off, one by one...oh the TENSION, the DRAMA...the utter "grippingness" of it all!

The unanswered questions, the doubts, the comic relief...oh, the sheer artistry...

The UTTER, UTTER, uselessness of it all!

(CLICK)

How bad is this movie? It's so bad that it doesn't even have any decent gratuitous nudity. They have a hot babe in Jaime Pressley running around an island in a midriff baring shirt, but no skinny dipping scene? Blasphemy! Worst, the movie is pitifully stupid and amateurish.

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!

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.

I had a chance to see a private screening of this movie. DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT, waste your money to go see this movie in a theater or to even rent it. Pinata is hands-down the worst movie I've ever seen. The dialogue is horrible; in one scene, one of the characters describes that the sound the pinata makes is like the pain and suffering of a village of people, which incidentally matches the exact myth of the pinata. The biggest problem I had with this movie is that it is neither horror or a satire on horror; rather it is stuck somewhere in between. At least with the "Scream" trilogy and "Scary Movie" you get a decent attempt to ridicule the horror genre. Pinata seems uncertain of whether to ridicule the genre or be one of its movies. Please don't see this movie.