I don’t even know what this movie is officially titled. On IMDB, it is titled Survival Island but on the DVD cover it says, Piñata: Survival Island, I think I will stick with the IMDB title of just simply Survival Island as the piñata part will be explained in a bit. This movie is one of the cheesiest, most non-sensible horror movies I have ever seen. There are few movies that ask for this much suspension of disbelief to make it through to the end of the movie.
Survival Island starts by giving us a back story of a native South American tribe that is suffering from disease and famine. They decide to make an offering to the gods by making a piñata which does not even look like a piñata since they constructed it out of clay. We then get introduced to our cast of teens that are going to be slaughtered throughout the film. They get introduced to us by showing them riding jet skies and racing to the island that serves as our backdrop to this film.
Now you might be asking, what brings these teens to this random island is the middle of nowhere? Well, I am glad you asked. They are participating in a random game of collecting underwear that is spread out through the island for reasons that are not clearly stated. During this game, some of the teens come across the clay statue of the demon and immediately recognize it as a piñata, even though it looks nothing like a piñata. They try to break it open to see what is inside of this odd object causing it to come to life and go on a murder spree on the island.
One of the oddest scenes in Survival Island that made me laugh, simply because the coincidence of this scene and the chances of this actually being possible are so slim, is when the remaining surviving teens gather around a campfire to try and figure out what is happening. One of them randomly starts talking about a legend he heard about while in school and then proceeds to recite the same back story that we heard in the beginning. This is what I meant when I mention the amount of suspension of disbelief that is needed to make it through this movie, of all the groups of teens and of all the islands on earth we just so happen to get one guy who knows exactly what curse is happening on this island. That is probably some of the worst writing I have come across during this whole the time this whole Ode to Bad Reels column began, and there is some tough competition against that.
Survival Island does not play any games, however. Right at the 20-minute mark of this movie is when the slaughtering begins. Even though the animation is not consistent and when it is on screen it looks terrible when it is not the piñata monster just looks like a guy in a rubber suit. The kill scenes, however, are well done and adds some fun to this otherwise confusing story. Towards the end, the movie turns into Predator, where the characters are done being hunted and decide it is their turn to do the hunting. We even get a weird version of Predator vision that is given to the piñata monster.
I would recommend watching Survival Island with a group of friends. Even though the story is difficult to follow and there are too many coincidences to make it believable, the kill scenes and the hilarious appearance of the piñata monster will definitely bring some laughs to the room. Grab some popcorn and fill your favorite piñata with candy and press play on this hilariously terrible movie.
Check out the trailer for Survival Island here:
