Survival Island

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.

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.

...one of the worse movies ever made. It's so incredibly stupid that actually after a nice blunt or two you might even have fun with it. 1/10 (2/10 if you count this "underwear collecting contest" for a fresh idea)