cinema lunatic

One persistent question obsesses me: do people set out to make crap? When the Hillenbrand brothers made Pinata: Survival Island, did someone write the whiny dialogue, storyboard the boring cinematography and coordinate the lame make-up and effects, then sigh in satisfaction and think, "My work here is done."

Jaime Pressley and Nicholas Brendon from Buffy the Vampire Slayer "star" as two graduate students who are sent to an Mexican island research facility with six or eight or 10 other students (I lost count). I think they are supposed to set up some kind of research lab, but first, a bit of fun! They are asked to go on a scavenger hunt for panties strewn all over the island to win $20,000 for a charity of the winners' choice. But, unbeknownst to them, an ancient ceramic pinata filled with evil spirits has landed on the island, ready to exact its revenge after a pair of stoned students try to smash it open.

Pressley accepted this role under the impression it was a comedy. I see how she could have come to that misunderstanding.

The plot borrows endless horror movie and teen beach movie cliches. Ominous prologue? Check. Numerous references to tequila? Check. Monster-vision, where we see the action from the pinata's point of view? Check. Unnecessary usage of Greek letters for fraternity and sorority names? Check. Brutal death after doing someting mildly scandalous? Check. There is one notable exception --- Pinata has only one brief bikini shot, with Jaime Pressley. While she looks nice, her striped suit looks ugly and cheap, as if the producers had to look on the Wal-Mart clearance racks for their one bikini shot.

I don't even mind movie-by-numbers. This script does much worse than that. The main couple's "witty banter" is as tiresome as listening to some random couple whining at each other on the bus. The other characters are worse than random. I kept wondering, " Are you Bill, Bob, Larry, or Doug?"

Then, the interchangable characters just adapted to whatever lame-brained scenario the screenwriters need to further the plot. For instance, after a few murders, one guy wants to remain in the relative safety of the beach, but is outvoted and the team "searches for the others." Then, when a rock slips into his hiking boot, he insists the rest of the team "go on ahead" while he fiddles boringly with his boot --- leaving him as pinata-bait. (I won't spoil this one.)

This is one of those bad movies make the mistake of having one idea (in this case, "Let's make a movie about a killer pinata!") and then failing come up with a convincing scenario to make that idea work. Unfortunately, this is a mistake so boring that Pinata: Survival Island can't even be a good bad movie.

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