With a cumbersome title created in order to lure in the reality show
crowd, a movie called "Pinata: Survival Island" made me more than a
little leery. I never watch those types of shows on television, and I
have less reason to watch any movie that duplicates such silly antics. I
decided to throw all caution to the wind and watch the film, and I
found myself pleasantly surprised with the results. "Pinata" is
definitely no Oscar contender, with its healthy dose of cheesy CGI
special effects and occasionally corny dialogue, but an interested
horror fan will find plenty to like with this movie.
We learn at the
beginning of the movie that a little village located at some point in
the distant past suffered through a season of terrible evil. A serious
drought caused a marked decline in the food supply, resulting in
malnutrition and several deaths. Following this unfortunate incident, a
weird sickness claimed more lives. The people became desperate to solve
their problems, so they turned to the local pottery artisan for help. In
league with the village priest, this artisan began constructing a huge,
wicked looking clay piñata. The plan involved using this creation to
house the evil spirits sweeping through the village. Unfortunately for
the village, it took a long time to build the piñata, and many people
died before the artisan finally emerged from his little shack with the
clay container. The priest and the artisan placed a fresh heart and some
magic stones (I know; I groaned at the idea of "magic" stones, too)
into the piñata, and then the village held a ceremony where the priest
placed the sins of the people into the clay demon. The people set the
piñata adrift in the "magic" river where lightening promptly struck the
object, thus sealing the evil into the icon for an indeterminate amount
of time. If you think this opening sequence reeks of cheese, you are
right. It's groan worthy in the extreme, but it does set up the
background for the massacre that's soon to follow.
Flash forward
to Cinco de Mayo, 2001. A gang of twelve college kids heads to an island
owned by their university in order to take part in one of those
obnoxious fraternity/sorority activities we all hate. The idea is
simple: a boy and girl are handcuffed together and must roam around the
island collecting underwear. The pair with the most pairs of underpants
wins a large sum of money for charity. A few piñatas placed
strategically around the island contain little surprises for our hard
drinking group of bubbleheads. Two of the kids, Kyle and Tina, are not
happy about pairing up because they just broke up immediately before
arriving on the island, but they are willing to go along with game for
the sake of a good time. There is also a guy and girl who act as judges
in the contest, so we now have a high possibility of a double digit body
count when the sauce starts to fly, and believe me, the sauce flows
darn quick in this movie. I really have no idea why the Mexican
Independence Day serves as a major plot point of the film, but I guess
it doesn't really matter. Any holiday of even trivial importance would
serve as long as it supplies victims for the evil spirits in the piñata.
Within
twenty or so minutes, one of the girls discovers a huge clay piñata
floating in the water. Thinking this object must be one of the prizes
the judges told everyone about, this girl and her guy partner break the
thing open with a rock. The nightmare begins, as the piñata morphs into a
killer entity with an otherworldly rage. The kids drop at regular
intervals in scenes that are surprisingly ultra gory. The demon (there's
no better term for what this creature is) beats in heads with sticks
and shovels, tears people apart with its hands, and generally makes a
complete nuisance of itself. At some point, the thing becomes airborne
and swoops around the island, roaring and thrashing its way through the
rapidly dwindling collegians. Banding together to fight this enemy seems
to do no good, as the creature picks off stragglers with ease. The
predictable conclusion sees the survivors going on the offensive against
the demon. At the very least, I thought the filmmakers would attempt to
set up a sequel, but is doesn't look like this will happen-unless video
rentals take in a good sum, of course.
The DVD contains several
extras: cast bios, three trailers, and an interesting documentary about
making the creature. Apparently, the filmmakers shot the whole movie
using a guy in a rubber suit as the demon, but backed out of that idea
when someone said it wasn't scary enough. The result involved inserting
CGI effects in every scene in which the conventional special effect
appeared. Personally, I thought the original idea wasn't all that bad,
but what do I know about marketing a picture. These days, every film
takes the easy way out and uses CGI, but in this case it just doesn't
work as well here. Overall, "Pinata: Survival Island" isn't a bad movie,
but it isn't great either. Jaime Pressly does what she can with her
part, which isn't much. At least she has more to do than the rest of the
cast, who disappear in particularly nasty ways quickly. Give this movie
a shot if you like horror films, especially movies with a significant
dose of cheese slathered on top.