Survival Island

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.

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.

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.

Thankfully, I didn't waste my money renting this movie, I watched it on cable instead, where it was part of the AMC Friday night "Frightfest" line-up. The only thing I seem to have wasted was my time and my last remaining brain cell.

However, I think the cable channel mistook this movie for a "horror" film where it should have been more appropriately slotted between an airing of "AIRPLANE II" and "STEWARDESS SCHOOL".

My curiosity to see this movie spiked when I discovered that Xander from "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" was starring in it. The first chuckles came when the credits list him as a "Producer", followed by the blatant rip off of the opening credits from the movie "THE THIRTEENTH WARRIOR".

But never mind that, after you get past the hilarious introduction which shows how the evil piñata is created, the movie kicks into overdrive as we flash forward to the present day where a group of frat kids are heading to an island for an underwear scavenger hunt! I kid you not, some people actually spent a lot of time and effort to think up this highly original plot.

I for one was expecting something similar to Nicholas Brendon's last beach horror movie, "PSYCHO BEACH PARTY" which turned out to be a rather amusing camp trash mini-classic. Apparently, Brendon was looking to steer himself in a more "serious" direction and decided to leave the laugh track behind.

Unfortunately, the laugh track follows him to this particular movie as well, but for all the wrong reasons. All of the characters are incredibly annoying, so you're just praying that this piñata thing shows up really fast so it can start the bloodshed. And when it finally does show up, that is when the real laughter begins!

I haven't laughed this hard since, well, "PSYCHO BEACH PARTY"! The piñata looks like it was created on someone's home computer, a Commodore 64 perhaps. You can't help but laugh when you see it's eyes glow orange and you suddenly get to see through "Pinata vision" which is apparently a poor attempt at copying "PREDATOR", but this time, we get to see its victims as orange triangles stacked on top of each other (LOL).

I agree with another user's comment here, before seeing this movie, I was picturing some sort of papier-mache donkey that is brought to life and goes on some sort of a killing rampage. Watching this particular "piñata" running around clubbing people to death with a yard stick was too hilarious for words.

There is one scene that involves a dirt buggy crashing into a log and "blowing up". The 'explosion' graphics look like they were spliced right out of a video game. In fact, I don't even think they used a "green screen" when filming this particular scene as it looks like they transferred a CGI "fireball" from the early-90's computer game "DOOM" directly onto the film - the graphics don't even match the surrounding scenery and the flames overlap the trees! They must have had a lot of good times while filming this. I could picture the director shouting to the girl, "Now fly through the air like you're dodging a fireball!", the girl trying to keep a straight face while improvising at the same time.

The acting is also in a field of its own. If you want to call what these actors are doing, "acting" - there is a scene where one girl is picking underwear off a roped line and decides to skip a few for no reason. The whole point of them being there is to COLLECT AS MANY PAIRS OF UNDERWEAR AS YOU CAN - which would probably also explain why one of the guys also decides to leave several boxers pinned to a bush. Priceless!

The worst actor out of all of them was the one handcuffed to Nicholas Brendon - Jaime Presley. I had to click on her name to see what else she had been in and was not surprised at all to see that most of it had either gone straight-to-video or was a small cameo in a two-bit television show on UPN.

The dialog was downright embarrassing. When Nicholas Brendon tries to impress Jaime Presley at the beginning of the movie by explaining the history of "Cinco de Mayo" after everyone else at the table had passed for stupidity, I just burst out laughing. This movie was simply awful!

Also, when did they change the name of this movie to "DEMON ISLAND"? Is this a laughable attempt at trying to rename the film to trick people into seeing it after the bad word of mouth gets around?

After watching this trash, one can only hope that someone would fill a real piñata with copies of this movie so we can all have a go at it with a wooden bat.

My Rating - 0 out of 10

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)