Piñata: Survival Island (2002)

Demon Island

Cast:

Nicholas "Xander from Buffy, Vampire Slayer series" Brendon is Kyle
Jaime "Remember my tour-de-force performance from Poison Ivy: Next Generation?" Pressly is Tina
Eugene Byrd is Doug
Kasey Fallo is Monica, the Judge
Garrett "I am Harry Kim from Star Trek: Voyager" is Paul, the Judge

What the box says:

A group of college fratnerity and sorority kids show up for an island adventure, the annual Cinco de Mayo treasure hunt. With women's and men's underwear scattered around the island and guy and girl teams handcuffed into pairs, the testosterone is high and the schemeing is down and dirty to collect the most underwear before the finish line. The fun and games turn into a contest of survival when two of the co-eds smash an ancient piñata reviving the demon spirits within. Evil has gone whack! Suddenly the drunken and sexy exploits become hide-from-the-creep. Only something this evil could tear such good friends apart!

Plot:

Character names are pointless for this movie.

A small tribe lived in peace for generations. We see the village’s skilled piñata maker at work. The village is suffering from a terrible drought. A plague has struck the villagers. They believe they’re being haunted for their sins by evil spirits.

Finally, the piñata maker is ready for the ritual to purify the village. A pig heart and the village’s sacred stone (must be like the one from Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom) draws the evil into the specially designed evil capturing piñata. A many day trek brings the villagers to the sacred place to begin the ceremony. Each of the villagers is ritually purified with their sins imprisoned in the evil piñata. They touch the good luck piñata to bless them.

The evil piñata is sent down the river. The villagers break open the good luck piñata to release the good luck. The evil piñata will keep the evil unless it is broken.

May 5, 2001, idiot fraternity and sorority fu ensues. Water balloons, frolicking, super soakers. The inflatable boats pull ashore. Kyle stares longingly at Tina (Jaime Pressly, which is understandable). Kyle’s friend wants to know why they broke up. Oh, there will be tension between the 2.

Tina is with one of her friends. She is torn up about the breakup which is just a misunderstanding. Well, carnage makes the heart grow fonder.

The collective lunchmeat is welcomed to the scavenger hunt. They head to the camp. The massive imbibing of booze begins. Scattered around the island are thousands of pairs of underwear. The team that collects the most pairs wins $20,000 that will be split between charity and the winning team fraternity and sorority. Around the island, liquid refreshment is scattered throughout piñatas.

The scavenger contest is about to begin. A frat guy is handcuffed to a sorority chick as a team. Guess what? The bickering Kyle and Tina are a team. The game begins.

Random underwear grabbing ensues.

Bob and Lisa uncuff themselves. Bob has out his special herb to partake of the reefer. Team Stoner is grabbing the underwear when Lisa who is half baked finds a clay piñata in the lagoon. They drag it ashore and try to break it open. They have managed to barely crack it open when the wind starts blowing. Piñata is alive and starts attacking Bob, while Lisa is standing nearby screaming. The piñata chases after her. Bob’s soul is trapped in the Piñata.

Ahhhh, KILLER PINATA!!!

At camp, Kyle and Tina are sitting around handcuffed. They are tired of not doing anything and decide to join the scavenger hunt.

Odious Comedian and Red Haired Girl are hiding from a noise. We get the Raimi stolen POV monster shot. And, it isn’t even a monster as much as half delusional blonde chick. Lisa is ranting about how a piñata killed Bob. They realize she’s more baked than Betty Crocker and think this is some plot to steal their underwear. Lisa runs off.

Our intrepid team keeps scavenging. The Piñata is skulking about watching them when Odious Comedian bashes in one of the little paper-mache piñatas.

Lisa finds the judges: Paul and Monica. She is ranting about how they need to leave the island.

Odious and Red Hair are still on the hunt. The evil Piñata kills Red Haired chick. Now, Odious Comedian is in serious trouble. He can only escape by dragging Red Hair’s corpse that is handcuffed to him. Let’s just say he doesn’t last much longer.

The judges aren’t sure what to make of Lisa’s story. They find Kyle and Tina, uncuff them, and have them go to camp. The judges will look for Bob. Eventually, the judges find the severed torso of Bob.

One team is going at it while the Piñata watches them. The chick decides to wait for sweet lovin’ to ensue. They spot and check out the piñata. It pulls out horny guy’s heart. And then kills the screaming female.

Kyle signals everyone to come back to camp. Lisa is severely disturbed by everything. Kyle apologizes to Tina for thinking she was cheating on him. The things people do before the sucking of face ensues.

Paul calls Kyle on the walkie-talkie and wants everyone to head to the boats. Paul and Monica will search for the other teams that are still out.

Kyle asks Lisa what is going on.

The evil Piñata is roaming around.

Doug and his chick partner are wandering around.

Kyle, Tina, and Lisa reach the beach and find the boats slashed with giant Evil Piñata footprints leading away. Here come a few logical questions. Where are the boats that brought the 4-wheelers to the island? Because, those inflatable boats we saw that brought the lunchmeat to the island couldn’t have done it.

The judges are searching for the lunchmeat. The Evil Piñata has Predator-like infra-red vision. The Piñata jumps from a tree to chase them. Monica is thrown from her 4-wheeler when it explodes. Paul and her beat feet from the Evil Piñata.

Paul is mauled to death by the Piñata, and Monica manages to escape. She is crawling around in the jungle to avoid the evil Piñata.

At camp, Kyle, Tina, and Lisa are around the fire. Kyle knows about evil piñata folklore. He tells of a village that imprisoned its sins in a piñata. Lisa knows she released it. We hear something approach. It is another cheap scare from the new lunchmeat.

The next morning, Lisa is pretty batty. They decide to look for the others as the searching montage begins. The Evil Piñata watches from a distance Bette Midler would approve of. Keep trodding on, Duded is tying his shoe, falling back from the group. The Evil Piñata is skulking up on him.

The group heads back to check on Dude. The Piñata is watching them all. The group starts calling out for the missing-though-not-yet-known-as-dead lunchmeat. Piñata snags Dude by the neck and hauls him into a tree.

The group heads on before realizing Dude is gone. Lisa is into extremely high-hysterical gear at this point. She wants to head back to the camp. None of them notice their friend being strangled in a tree above them.

Lisa and Carmen head back to camp while Tina and Kyle keep searching.

The Piñata is on the hunt.

Kyle and Tina find the Piñata tracks heading back to camp.

The Piñata decapitates Carmen as he swings by Tarzan style. Lisa is screaming even more hysterically when Tina and Kyle arrive. Kyle starts looking for the Piñata.

Lisa runs off from Tina who chases after her.

Kyle finds Monica.

Tina finds Lisa back at camp. Someone is in a tent. The Evil Piñata grabs Lisa and kills her. Tina sees the Piñata who chases after her.

Kyle and Monica are looking for Tina. She is running as if her implants depended on it. Kyle grabs her and keeps her quiet as the Piñata passes them.

That night, the Piñata is searching for the lunchmeat.

Kyle, Tina, and Monica are looking for Paul’s 4-wheeler. They need the gas to hunt the Piñata.

Our intrepid heroes finally find the 4-wheeler as the Piñata rages around the island.

The gas is siphoned from the tank. They run off when they hear the Piñata approaching.

Kyle, Monica, and Tina are scared by magically wandering in on the stockpile of dead friends they discover. This Piñata can’t be held responsible from stealing from Michael Meyers or Jason Voorhees, can he?

They light various torches and wait. I have to mention this part of the movie is so dark you can barely see anything.

The Evil Piñata approaches Monica. They catch the Piñata in a net and set it aflame.

The Piñata falls from the net and tosses Monica around.

The Piñata chases after Tina. But, Kyle comes to her rescue. Tina readies the gas.

Kyle isn’t able to handle the Piñata. Tina handcuffs a Molotov cocktail to the Piñata.

Monica, Kyle, and Tina run off before the Piñata explodes. We see the digitized souls escape.

The next morning, coroners are gathering the bodies. Kyle, Tina, and Monica are asked what happened on the island as the movies ends.

What I say:

The original title is Demon Island. I’m not sure how the Survival Island got tacked onto the title. It gives the movie some air of reality television. An evil demon trapped in a piñata? Oddly enough, this isn't the first evil trapped in a strange object. Amityville: The Evil Escapes concerns a demonic lamp. How about the definitivie evil demon trapped in a ridiculous object? Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama had an imp trapped in a bowling trophy. Granted, we got Linnea Quigley and so many other 80s Scream Queens to distract us from the plot. And, my favorite evil object movie: The Refrigerator. An evil refrigerator manages to gain mental control of a yuppie. "I am the WAFFLE KING!!!" I could digress into killer cars in Maximum Overdrive and the like. But, those and their ilk fall out of the demonic possessed object category.

I have seen stupid people in movies. But, these people have to take the cake. How, they are able to remember to keep breathing? They should have them pray every day for involuntary body actions. “Something is roaming around the island killing my friends. But, I’ll be ok by myself when I tie my shoes.” Wouldn't a group of drunk people handcuffed together be some kind of hazard? Tripping, falling, etc... Pretty much every cliche from Scream has been used in this movie. Now, it seems taking the so-called rules that poked fun of many lame horror movies then using them in more lame movies is like pouring water in a glass with a few drops of milk to get really murky water. From Scream, Urban Legends was unleashed upon us.

I might not have watched enough of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer to know much about Xander. But, he can't be as useless in Buffy as in this movie. What guy in a fraternity knows evil piñata folklore? If that isn't bad enough, we have to deal with pathetic relationships that make those self-insertion fanfics of the pimply teenage boy who wins the love of every Sailor Scout seem believable.

By, the description of the plot, I’m sure everyone can really tell how much I related to the characters. Nothing against frats, I never could understand the concept of paying money out for friends. Come to think of it, everyone in my high school senior class that pledged their first semster of college wasn't there the next semester. And, come to think of it, after more than 6 years, I got out with a bachelors and masters. A long term stay in college let me really see how pointless, they were. But, enough of this small autobiography, which I'm sure my devoted fans aren't interested in, all ten of you....Back to whatever this paragraph was about. It wasn’t very long until I was rooting for the Piñata to get rid of them all.

Jaime Pressly may not sore the eyes. Wearing few and tight clothes can only do so much. But, her character has absolutely no personality. At first, they try to make her seem smart which quickly fades away from the plot. I'm not claiming she is a good actress. But, at least in most of the movies of hers I've seen, she knew to at least play a brain empty bubblehead. Not Another Teen Movie. And, if not bubbleheaded, at least, we were distracted from her inability to act as in Poison Ivy: The Next Generation with William "Commander Ryker" Frakes...He didn't star in that movie. Ok, I had to do a Star Trek joke with a subtitle like that...

So, how long before Garret Wang can abandon killer piñata movies before going on the Star Trek convention circuit? I didn’t think he was bad in this movie. But, it is like Walter”Chekhov” Koenig’s epic movie Moontrap. Granted, Star Trek: Voyager will never get anywhere near the popularity of the other series. But, with a Star Trek series on your resume, you would get some better offers than this. If nothing else, a regular appearance on any Star Trek or Babylon 5 series automatically entitles you to write science fiction. Anybody out there remember Walter Koenig's epic masterpiece Buck Alice and the Actor Robot?

The piñata effects were done by Chiodo brothers. They created the effects for Critters and their masterpiece Killer Klowns From Outer Space. And, a clay midget killing fraternity and sorority members isn't too bad. But, near the end, the digital effects were turned loose and ruined it.

The gore effects while are nowhere near the level of Tom Savini. They aren’t that bad. But, most of them consist of a club bludgeoning someone. There was one decent decapitation. Ok it was pretty good compared to the crappy one in Slave of the Cannibal God. But, rating a movie against a very crappy one isn’t a good way to accurately consider it.

I got sick of trying to figure who was who. We do have scene where they call off everyone’s name. But, it was so quick. And, I wasn’t going to rewatch it until I figured who was on first. THIRD BASE!!! They did have a running gag where Lisa, hysterical girl, couldn’t remember her partner Bob’s name. She kept calling him Bill.

Most movies automatically alienate the viewer by having fraternities as the hero. Granted, there are exceptions like Revenge of the Nerds: Lambda Lambda Lambda. But, what do we feel for a bunch of drunken idiots running around grabbing underwear? As little as possible.

This isn’t as bad of a movie as it is forgettable which is worse. These characters you would rather run over with your car if gas were cheaper. The deaths aren’t varied. The onscreen kills involve a clay midget clubbing Greeks in the head. That should be the hardest place on their body with as little grey matter as they have up there. The climactic fight should at least be lit enough to know what is going on instead of just having to guess that the Piñata is attacking someone.

Point to Ponder
How exactly does a Central American tribe's pinata connect to Cinco De Mayo?

Quotable Dialogue
"As the sin-filled pinata floated away, the forces of nature continued to build."
"There will be no sexual activitiy on this island unless I'm directly involved."
"A piñata came to life and smashed his head."
"This is for Bob, you evil piñata..."
Morals of the Story
Sorority girls make sand angels.
Blood doesn't taste too bad.
Piñatas are protective of their young.
Tropical islands in the Pacific Ocean have deer.
Sand not best to grab for traction.
Rock throwing angers piñatas.