Piñata: Survival Island

A group of college kids go to an exciting Scavenger Hunt on a Mexican Island. What are they scavenging?  Underwear.  Ain’t college grand?

As if the premise wasn’t enough to warn me that I shouldn’t watch this movie, the prologue should’ve been the second clue. I had to rewind the prologue around 4 times because my mind would just drift away.  It just wasn’t that interesting. I know that this was to set up the whole premise, but it was booooring. The narrator sounded a bit like Joaquim de Almeida, but not as cool, and I think that dude’s voice is great! I just couldn’t pay attention to the introduction. I should have known that was a signal from my brain, a warning, but I’m generally not smart enough to pay attention to my brain, so I proceeded with the movie.  Oh boy.

The introduction tells about how this old Mexican village was cursed and so they made this piñata, (it’s an original clay piñata, not the flimsy ones you see at kid’s birthday parties, but the movie would have been better if it were), and put all the bad energy into it, then buried it.

I really don’t know why they even put this long, boring introduction into the movie, because Nicholas Brendan sums it up for us about halfway through. Apparently, he’s some big expert on Mexico and he has heard of the legend. Maybe they included the intro to pad the length of the movie.

So, while on their great scavenger hunt, one college gal finds the deadly piñata in some shallow water. Of course, she drags it out and shows her scavenger hunt partner. They’re stoned out of their minds, but they are terrible at acting stoned, so it just comes across as a couple of bad actors faking stoned. Well, they open it by cracking it open with a rock, and that’s when the bad stuff starts happening! The piñata comes to life and starts its rampage. Hilarious is probably a good word for the piñata, at least in terms of its look. Really bad, but really funny.

When the piñata is stalking its victims, we see through its eyes, piñata vision if you will, which is directly taken from Predator vision, only this looks much worse, and not cool at all. The colors of the vision will change hues, but always surrounded by triangles. If I had to see like that, I’d probably be killing stoned college kids, too.

The CGI of said piñata isn’t bad, just dated looking, and it’s not layered into the film very well. That is to say, you can tell when the piñata is CGI and it looks very fake. The costume version is much better and more believeable. Well, as believeable as a person in a rubber suit that is supposed to look like a walking stone piñata can be.

Oh, and he transforms, too. Like when he’s chasing some stupid college kids, his stubby legs and arms grow out, and he looks kind of like a stone gargoyle transformer. Another time it transforms into an evil slimer. I have no idea how or why it decided to transform into the different forms, aside from more mobility when chasing the college idiots. The other effects, such as when a 4 wheeler explodes, are REALLY bad. Must’ve spent their budget on getting Jaime Pressley to sign her contract.

The acting is about what you’d expect from a movie like this, not good. In fact, it’s a good thing that Nicholas Brendan and Jaime Pressley were in this to raise the bar on the acting a notch or two. Without them, it would have been completely hopeless, and even then…well, I’ve seen both of them put in much better performances previous to this.

While the idea of an evil piñata sounds terrifying, I had some other ideas for a terrifying horror where Mexican objects are used as the device to terrorize teens.

• Maracas – don’t shake them or you will wake up the sleeping evil within!
• Baleros cup – if you catch the ball in the cup, the evil contained within the ball will be released!
• Sombrero – don’t put this on or you will be possessed by the evil that lives within the dingle balls that adorn the edge of the brim!
• Tortilla – it will wrap you up!
• Molcajete – leave your spices where they are, or this evil device will grind you up!

While this is a terrible movie, it’s not the worst of its kind I’ve seen. Oh no, Evil Bong is a much worse movie than this, but not by much. There was at least gratuitous nudity in Evil Bong. With Jaime Pressley in this movie, you would think that the same could be said, but it’s not…sadly.

You know what, though? For as terrible as this movie was, it was equally entertaining in that below B-movie way, and I really feel that was the intent of the filmmakers. For that, I cannot fault them, as they did what they intended; they entertained me.