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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Pinatas Can Be Dangerous to Your Health, September 9, 2003
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.
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