Horror Movie Review: Demon Island (2002)

One look at the cover art for Demon Island aka Piñata: Survival Island, should make it clear that this is not a movie to take seriously in anyway. If you’re not going to put much effort into decent photoshop, there’s a strong sense that the film isn’t going to be very good.

Which is very much the case with Demon Island, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun, because it is. It’s very silly, excessively gory, and extremely dumb. All of that makes for an enjoyable watch.

From co-writers and co-directors, David Hillenbrand and Scott Hillenbrand, Demon Island stars Nicholas Brendon, Jaime Pressly, Eugene Byrd, Casey Fallo, Lara Wickes, Garrett Wang, Julia Mendoza, and Ed Gale.

It’s the annual Cinco de Mayo treasure hunt and a group of college students have sailed to a remote island to take part. There, they are coupled up and sent to find as many pieces of underwear (the film came out in 2002) as possible, with the couple that collects the most, winning a huge sum of money.

It sounds like fun, but this island has a curse on it, and it involves a clay piñata. One that is filled with all the evil of an ancient tribe that once lived on the island. Awoken by some of the college students, the evil clay piñata goes on a rampage across the island, killing anyone and everyone it comes across.

It is such a dumb story, and plays out in extremely dumb fashion, but David Hillenbrand and Scott Hillenbrand seem to know this, so certainly have some fun with it. Notable, from the first kill the clay piñata dishes out. As the gore and violence is egregious for a movie like this. Something that continues all the way through the film, with college students being offed on a semi-regular basis in imaginative and bloody ways.

It’s what makes this film worth watching, because there really isn’t much else. The story is pretty crap, the characters are trash, the acting is nothing special, and it lacks scares or tension building. The fun simply comes from watching the clay piñata (which looks terrible too) running around the island using its ‘predator vision’ to smash and rip apart the panty hunting meat.

It’s the epitome of an ‘unchain your brain’ movie. Simply sit back, don’t overthink it, and enjoy the stupidity of it all. You’ll get to see bodies ripped in half, heads smashed open, and the hilarious sight of a clay piñata sprinting.