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Piñata: Survival Island Review: There are so many resonances of David Hillenbrand and Scott Hillenbrand's Piñata: Survival Island in the horror genre, reaching back to the '50s and even earlier. The plot is clever, turning logic on its head in grisly fashion and twisting around some of the conventions of the modern horror genre. The film strings out the suspense across the first 20 minutes (after a cleverly designed and shot opening segment, set 500 years in the past), in which the students get ever closer to the evil piñata; it then reveals the monster in ever more threatening incarnations. Indeed, at one point, the movie seems to tip its hat, visually and metaphorically, to Dan Milner's 1957 killer tree-stump movie From Hell It Came (but with infinitely better effects), the Warner Bros. Tasmanian devil, and the id-monster in Forbidden Planet; and at other times, its plot recalls those Mexican horror films of the early '60s, such as Curse of the Doll People. As grisly as the deaths are, there are no two alike, and the movie maintains a nutty lightheartedness, reminiscent of the Chucky films. There are also other interesting elements: the fact that the slightly lesbian guide, portrayed by Kasey Fallo (who is excellent), plays an unusually strong role in the plot, and also the distinct look that the makers have given to each of the different sections of the movie. In the end, Piñata: Survival Island (which shows up in many retail databases as "Survival Island") is not a great movie, just a better, cleverer movie than one would expect from this genre at this late date and also a great deal of fun. Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

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