Pssst, want to check out Survival Island in our new look?
Information
- Year
- 2002
- Runtime
- 85 min.
- Directors
- David Hillenbrand, Scott Hillenbrand
- Genres
- Thriller, Horror
- Rating *
- 2.4
- Votes *
- 3,068
- Checks
- 77
- Favs
- 0
- Dislikes
- 18
- Favs/checks
- 0.0% (0:77)
- Favs/dislikes
- 0:18
Top comments
-
Siskoid
Oh boy. Piñata: Survival Island (AKA Demon Island) had, on paper, some promise. Jamie Pressly and Buffy's Nicholas Brendon are nominally its stars, with Voyager's Garrett Wang getting an "and" credit, and the monster, an ancient demonic piñata, has a goofy charm, looking like a big terracotta Chucky. In execution, however... You know the drill, a bunch of obnoxious frat boys and sorority girls participate in a scavenger hunt on a deserted island, release a demon, and start dying at the hands of a monster that, once unleashed, changes modus operandi and looks a few times, at which point the awful CG effects run everything into the ground. Even so, one might wave bad fx away if it wasn't that the flick was so badly edited. The editor just doesn't know what's important! There are cuts inside the same shot, stupid inserts, murky demon attacks, important scenes left on the cutting room floor that makes the characters' lack of motivations even worse, and moments of clear padding, including an overlong prologue to explain the piñata's legend even if it comes up in dialog later. I also find it upsetting that the girl deaths are more sadistically gory than any of the dude bros'. But the movie's biggest sin, without a doubt, is having a piñata for a monster, and then not having the solution be to break it. In fact, the solution makes sense neither in real-world terms, nor based on the lore specific to the film. 3 years 5 months ago -
