Piñata: Survival Island (2002) Movie Review, Trailer, Film Still and Poster

USA 2001
Director: David Hillenbrand, Scott Hillenbrand
Cast: Nicholas Brendon, Jaime Pressly, Eugene Byrd, Casey Fallo, Nate Richert, Garrett Wang, Lara Wickes
Rating: R
Release Date: 14 June 2002; 4 Feb 2003 (DVD)
Running Time: 1 hour 25 minutes

The Movie Review

Piñata: Survival Island film still 1


Piñata: Survival Island (Demon Island)
Storyline:
Cast:
Ending:
Overall:

Pinata: Survival Island is one darn fine motion picture! One of the most fast-paced horror movie I've ever seen. Not the best in term of Oscar-material nor in production-wise, but it's certainly a darn fine popcorn flick and a great way to kill yout time with joy and fun!

So that is why...

I really don't think it's fair for a movie as intentionally humorous and amusing like this one to be heavily flayed... C'mon guys, this is a movie about big ugly fat stinkin' walkin' Pinata! (or in Indonesian would be "udah gede, jelek, bau, idup, jalan lagi!!" Which I might add the Pinata looks kinda cool in a comical kind of way. And for the sake of horror fans amusement, the movie is also set in a sunny beautiful island with hot college chicks as Pinata-fodders. Do you really expect something academy-award out of this? Okay, whatever it is, I really would like to review the movie for the sake of moviegoers who had been discouraged by the bad reviews about the movie.

Pinata: Survival Island revolves around 2 team of college students coming from different fraternity houses of Winston University. They sail to an island to compete against each other in order to win a big sum of money, US $20,000. The competition --so-called Cinco de Mayo Scavenger Hunt-- is held on a secluded island organized especially for this event. It's for a good cause though, because half the money would go into charity and the other half is gonne be used to refurnish the winner's fraternity/sorority house. What event? Oh nothing special... Just collecting 2,500 panties that were placed scattered around the island. Yessiree, it's the hunt for the panties!

And to make it even more kinkier, those 10 students are divided into small group of two. Male and female from opposite fraternity house. And... to make sure the team stick together, they are handcuffed! Mm-hm count me in! Anyhow, it's a bad new though for Kyle and Tina. They just recently broke up and the last thing they would do is to be in the same group. Haha, tough luck I guess. So, the guys and the gals are having fun on themselves, riding buggy across the pristine creek, running and laughing under the sunny sky on top of foliage and... instead of solely collecting them colourful panties, some of them opt to make out vigorously in various places. The island belongs to them.... Ups not exactly, because somewhere in the island, there is a big fugly Pinata full of evil spirit inside it waiting to break loose.

This fugly pinata was made deliberately long time ago by a village shaman of a mysterious village as the waste bin of all evil toughts of the village dwellers.

Naturally those well-educated students aren't gonna break anything suspicious right? Of course, but since the two judges of the competition, Paul and Monica, have placed Pinatas full of beverages to be smashed all over the island, then it is inevitable that this fugly Pinata would also be smashed... What will happen to the kids down there?

This movie is not stupid! I mean what do you expect from a movie with the main villain is a walking gigantic Pinata the size of a human? Of course it won't be a rocket-science, but intersting to note that even though the premise is laughable but the story is not. The characters are not stupid, for example, when a girl is running frantically back to the camp with bloo all over her face, judge Paul and judge Monica don't ignore her and pretend that she's hallucinating. Paul and Monica are instantly aware that there's something wrong in that island despite their skepticism of living pinata. And their immediate action has put some level of reality into the story.

But of course there are some points that will disappoint the viewers. The overall acting of all the cast for most of the time is unconvincing. The choice to make the evil Pinata can do some shapeshifting is a bad one, it's enough for it to be able to walk but seeing it transform into a flying beast is kinda like seeing the fugly version of Transformers. And the effects are mixed bad, sometimes they're ok and sometimes they're downright fake. This Island horror is also kinda graphic and heavy on the gore side and stingy on the nudity side. But all that saved by the neat editing, good camerawork and fast pacing. Makes almost no room for boredom except maybe near the end, when the chasing scene between the evil Pinata and the survivors is no longer interesting. But frankly, I never miss this title if whenever it's on TV. Pinata Survival Island aka Demon Island is a good popcorn flick which is neither emotionaly-demanding nor intellectually-demanding. Although I really wish they hadn't used any computer effects and just give us the man in that Pinata rubber suit! That would've certainly amped the cheesiness level to utmost cool!

And oh..., I forgot to tell you something, mmm... that ugly Pinata also likes to grab the crotch! :-D Muahahaha! Have fun guys!

> Island hopper, visit these terror islands: The Seamstress (2009), Growth (2009) and Surviving Evil (2009).