Horror movies have been scaring the pants off of people for decades. Usually, they'll consist of standard traits like blood-thirsty enemies out to get revenge, teenagers getting killed off one by one and a truck-load of gore.
Series like Halloween, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street have thrilled people with their endless mass murders, but what about bad horror movies?
Piñata: Survival Island is one horror movie gone completely wrong. At the beginning of the film, viewers are given a boring and silly backstory about some kind of ancient tribe that is never named. They begin to starve of disease, so some of the members ask why their gods are so furious with them.
Apparently, the tribe is becoming too malevolent, so the gods decide to put their evil into a piñata that one of the male tribe members created. Many years pass, and the piñata remains intact, but the island demon will be unleashed if anyone ever breaks it open.
Some time later, a bunch of college kids sail to the island to participate in a Cinco de Mayo treasure hunt. After hand-cuffing themselves to one partner, each team of two heads off to search for underwear, and the team who finds the most will win a prize.
Two of the kids just happen to find the piñata and, predictably, they break it open, allowing it to wreak havoc on the rest of the students.
Piñata is Filled With Unintentional Humor
This movie is full of cheap laughs, especially because of the horrible script and acting. Lame jokes and overemphasis of lines make for some unintentionally hilarious dialogue, especially when the actors are trying to be scared of the unimpressive demon (key word: trying).
It's like one of those unfortunate B movies where women are supposed to be terrified, but their weak, unenthusiastic screams just sound completely unconvincing.
Plus, who couldn't laugh at pitiful lines like these:
"I need to pee!"
"Just hold it in."
Oh, well. Apparently, viewers shouldn't be too picky about direct-to-DVD releases. At least there aren't too many movies about killer piñatas, right?
Be Warned: Piñata is One of the Worst Movies of All Time
Atrocious computer effects don't aid in improving the movie. None of the CG even blends in with the environment because of extremely low budget explosions and designs that look like they were literally ripped straight from a Playstation 1 video game and sloppily pasted into scenes.
There is no excuse for using such cheap software because this movie was made in 2002, and it's certain that there are much better effects in other smaller budget movies of the same decade.
The demon is also incredibly ugly. It has dual forms, one being a disfigured gnome-like creature. The second form looks like a skull-faced flying monster of some kind, which is just as unimaginative as the other one.
Plus, it sees in some kind of blaring red color, maybe infrared, but it's extremely difficult to see the screen when this hideously awful effect is in use.
Unrealistic movements make it even more difficult to take the movie seriously, especially since the monster jerks and creeps around awkwardly, usually sporting just one frowning, growling facial expression.
Speaking of camera work, it often suffers from shaky camera syndrome, making the poorly choreographed killing scenes look like even more of a disaster. The blood in particular looks so fake that viewers will be able to tell it's ketchup, food coloring or anything else they may have used.
Not only are the murders laughable, but there's also one scene where the piñata pulls off a guy's sexual organs. Certainly, this will make men everywhere squirm a little not because it's scary, but because it's just revolting.
There's not much to say about the soundtrack other than it's very contrived and can be heard in nearly every horror movie that has ever existed. One can't help but sarcastically think "oh, so scary" every time the spooky Halloween music plays in the background (and that's exactly what it sounds like, too...cheap scary music people play at their homes to draw in trick or treaters during Halloween).
Sometimes run-of-the-mill grunge/emo rock is played as well, particularly during the scene where the kids arrive on the boats, but it doesn't really do anything to improve the film at all.
Speaking of the characters, they fit every single stereotype that can be thought of. Piñata has the bimbo, the dorky guys, the hot leading man, the brave leading woman, the cute girl and more.
The problem is that none of them have any kind of background or defining traits that will make viewers care about them in the least bit. In fact, they are actually extremely annoying.
This Stink-Bomb of a Film Should Have Never Even Been Made
All in all, Piñata: Survival Island is a shame to horror movie buffs everywhere.
Unless they're into cheap laughs, terrible designs or just bad flicks all-around, fans should avoid this disgusting pile of garbage like the plague (or better yet, it should just be wiped from existence. Yeah, that would be even better).
For this reviewer, it doesn't even merit a rating since the scale won't allow a zero out of five rating.
Heather Ashley - I am a young woman from Virginia and my interests are in video games, children's tv and animated films. However, I could probably dabble ...
