Demon Island watch & review

It's funny how I can find value in b-grade trash, either that or I'm sick to death of mainstream movies forever tainted by reactionary reviewers who've turned millions into idiots. I blame Roger Ebert.

My criteria for movies, if it pisses me off, it's shit. That means any movie is fair game. I consider a shot on freehand movie to not be as bad as a Canadian Netflix movie. Hell, I'm not gonna lose my shit over low-grade 3D effects for the sake of embellishment, who am I? The Nostalgia Critic?

Whenever, I'm going to take a look at a movie from the Hillenbrand brothers, more on them in a sec. I'm not expecting high-octane horror goodness, I'm just expecting an enjoyable experience.

Background

Demon Island was written, directed and produced by brothers David and Scott Hillenbrand. The brothers first hit the scene with the direct-to-video... something, King Cobra, which was allegedly meant to come out before Anaconda as it was first in the pipeline but didn't. Their brand consists of direct-to-video fare, but I'm bound to find others who'd make them look better.

BrutalMoose fans are bound to recognize them for their work on GameBox 1.0, though the brothers are not referenced in said review. Thankfully, Ian has the stomach for cheesy content, and through the review, though it was incredibly cheap, it looked to be a lot of fun. That's the drive behind their movies, they're cheap and silly, but not devoid of enjoyment.

Demon Island was released through First Look Media, the American distribution arm of the now defunct Overseas Filmgroup. I'm tempted to say this aired on the Sci-Fi Channel at some point since First Look's films like Soulkeeper and Mansquito also aired there, but I could be wrong.

The Movie

One objective plus to the Hillenbrands is that they have a very cool vanity card. After some cheap CG intro graphic, we go into a narrative piece meant to establish the killer object, it being... a piñata. And this is, once again, discussed in the opening so I'm not spoiling it. There are no bad ideas, just ideas that piss you off in execution, and I already have low expectations.

What we get from this intro is some surprisingly decent establishing shots, only bad thing is how long it takes, the only essential aspect is the creation of the object and the downfall of those within the radius of its inception, but I'd be complaining if they got into the action and just explained it as they went along, and besides, it'd be a hard sell to explain an evil piñata.

Back on positives, I'm happy they established the piñata right away, like they don't build up to it, it's a familiar object with a dark curse and we get a reason for its being, plus it explains why it already looks evil, it's an amalgamate of the evil in the land it was created in, and its destruction would mark the sacrifice of said evil.

We then get a further glimpse into the CG effects the film will use. It harkens back to the era of Mortal Kombat (and BeoWulf to drive the point home on Lawrence Kassanoff) in terms of how ill-fitting it is, though it still looks better than the effects in the average Asylum movie.

Okay, so the opening spiel lasted for about seven minutes. At the very least the opening credits occurred alongside it, and we got a full idea on what the deal with out plot device is. I'm just saying, all I got out of A.M.I. was an anti-cellphone PSA, and the most hatable characters I've ever seen since Saved by the Bell.

After that we get our douche quota out of the way, various college-age blowhards head toward an island where the vessel of evil may be, blood is sure to spill. I'll give it this, it's not about summer or spring break this time, it's for Cinco De Mayo. Points for doing something different but it feels like you picked that to go with the piñata motif.

I won't lay a pass for this scene, either they want to make us hate these goons by showing us how obnoxious and flat they are... yeah maybe I should just wait until they get to shore. We get no wet t-shirt contests, but we do get some bare ass, let's be thankful Victor Salva wasn't at the helm here, spoiler, if you got those thoughts, you fell into a trap.

I'd say the ADR is faulty here, but the teens have little substance in what little dialog they have for the time being and it seems they just wanted us to hear the song in the background.

By the way here's a little trivia. The boats the teens ride in on have the name Woodson University on them. It is an actual university in Concord, North Carolina, though since this was filmed in California they either just made up the name and had no idea it shared one with a real university, or the university was actually kind enough to loan them to the crew.

We get a little banter between a beefcake and an African American guy, a bulk of the former's character is represented through a sudden slight slow-mo when a bikini-clad girl walks by. We'd get more, but first, we got a scavenger hunt. This is sure to lead them to the discovery of the piñata. Until then, it seems the coordinators mesh quite well with the attendees.

It's all a lot of fun, even a supposed dork gets to join in. Some may call this cheesy, I'd just call it college frat-life in a nutshell. If you hate this, then hopefully you hate Animal House for more than John Landis being involved in it. The Hillenbrand level of cheese is an enjoyable one, though the scene is in kinda drags on for too long and leaves little to establish. It doesn't make me angry because it wasn't unbearable.

One thing I will say, one of the guys would've wiped the floor on Pop Quiz Hotshot.

Payoff to this, romantic tension, but it seems the movie doesn't care for this either so we go on the scavenger hunt. I'd say they dug out of Eric Foreman's room, but then you'd have to assume he's into guys too.

Soon enough, we find our plot device in a creek, or pond, am I really gonna lose face over my inability to name the right kind of body of water? But at the very least this scavenger hunt thing wasn't for nothing, and hey, with so many obnoxious characters we won't feel too bad when they bite it. Wait, that's bad.

One sure to be dead, maybe, I don't know, girl pulls it out. She is stoned, and if you missed the scene where she puffed a bud, she begins to oversell that factoid, alongside a male companion named Bill, I mean Bob. And yes, that's alluding to this movie. You may be thinking they're so stoned and stupid they'd mistake it for a piñata, but as we saw early on the crafters were aware of the concept of a piñata.

The behavior of these two drive an anti-weed message better than Reefer Madness. I'm not against weed, I just have no reason to use it.

In trying to bust the piñata open, the evil within awakens and we have our plot, and we still have an hour and two minutes left, not too shaby. The evil is so great it undoes their high, and hey, it's awake, you know what that means? We get to see some bad CGI. The piñata was meant to be a full-body rubber suit and done without computer graphics, though they were included in post to make the creature more frightening-looking.

Seeing this monster, I'm expecting some really crappy CGI, but here it's just... meh. They do use the costume aspect, with the CG meant to make its face move, at least as far as the first appearance goes. It looks cheap, but it doesn't look incredibly silly, and I imagine a rubber costume would've looked too stiff.

The piñata seems to want to suck the souls out of those it kills to gain power, and the romantic tension couple may be our protagonists in this. I mean, somebody's gotta I guess. We get more cheesy dialog, and unlike Clockmaker it doesn't feel as forced. We then face either deadmeats or background survivors, one of which senses evil apparently.

This is just meant to spread word on the presence of evil, as they come across a fleeing victim. She isn't believed, but there is a payoff to our antagonist being a piñata, skepticism is welcome for a change, and with an ongoing scavenger hunt with a cash prize going on, yeah, gg Hillenbrands.

At this point, I don't want the two who found the victim to die, they have the perfect chemistry, why aren't they the mains? Though I could be speaking too soon. We have a rather pointless cut where the victim runs off, this sandwiched between the two walking by.

Back to the girl, even off of weed for the life of her she can't remember Bill- NO BOB!'s name. I do like how she admits to being under the influence but maintaining certainty on what she saw, not carried out like it's some big revelation. In B-movies, it's the little things.

Back to the potential deadmeats, I fear this would be their end, and it is. There's truly no justice in this world, they would've broken the mold in terms of horror protagonists. But hey, this movie gave me characters I care about, which is more than I could say for A.M.I.

We have a little less than an hour to go, so at this rate it's just rounding out the kills and getting to the bottom of what's behind it. This is a dealbreaker, because repetition is code for "I needed to reach feature length." Any suspense is hit or miss, but I can't call this unbearable. People may say the acting is bad, then I'd think people prefer irredeemable assholes from Whorelywood.

One thing that works in this movie's favor is the sparing use of the piñata at least up to this point. The CGI is cheap but they had the foresight to not cram it in constantly, plus I have seen a hell of a lot worse.

So the judges go to look for Bob, I know it's kinda fruitless to look for him since we know he's dead, but I will admit, the extent of the murder wasn't shown in full, we didn't get suspenseful music as they were en-route to finding the body, just before. For where they fail in computer animation, they make up in decent prop pieces. 

The acting here takes a little dive, but that's noting a little softcore action can't fix, and if that doesn't work, then how about murder? Okay, but first, a little hollow suspense. No way would this guy let some whacks to the body slide. But then again the suspense was dissipated at this point, we already saw three other kills.

One problem I noticed with the costume, they switch between the rubber suit and CGI with its face. It's very noticeable. As noticeable as getting your dick and balls ripped out of you. No seriously, the guy who was one of two on a makeout session gets castrated. That's one way to take someone out, strip them of who they are and then kill them.

We then get some Nam-esque flashbacks carried out like it's in some Steven Segall movie. Okay that was too general I apologize.

They at least have the foresight to try and leave the island, maybe a bit slow on the uptake but we needed some confirmation that something was wrong and relayed to those who had the means to call off the scavenger hunt. It's not good, but it makes just enough sense.

Then suddenly our intended protagonists mend their fences. They didn't see the murders or corpses directly, so it was just down to their own conclusions. And... I don't really care. The girl of the two was played by Jaime Pressly by the way, and the guy is played by Nicholas Brendon, Xander Harris in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It seemed the Hillenbrands were riding off the success of their respective shows from the time which is why they're kept on the longest.

Jaime Pressly stated she hates this movie, yet said nothing when she participated in Oogieloves. I don't know what to believe anymore.

Anyway they get into make-up making out, and hey, this is boring. Don't take my word for it, they cut to the judges abruptly as the making out happens. We're about to get exposition on what happened to the guy the girl was with, but it seems this movie would've gotten as bored as anyone else and cuts to a jump scare watching the judges go on their ATVs. It didn't scare me, but it was surprising.

The piñata cuts off their escape route, and bear in mind, this is a university campus, they'd have to explain why they left a bulk of their students for dead.

Anyhow, the judges are found and chased, and while the CGI is still certainly bad in this and at this point this accounts for the remainder of the piñata's appearances, they made the effort to make it all mesh well. Ever seen Legends of Tomorrow? There's one episode where a guy hulks out and they can't even pull off a reflection in a puddle when he comes by. This movie actually went to the trouble to simulate water splashing as the creature walked on water.

Also at this point the piñata changed appearance, I'd chalk it up to it gaining that much power at this point. Am I really gonna lose my mind over a sudden difference in appearance? Who am I? Bobsheaux? Nah, then I'd put this review behind a paywall.

The lady judge crashes her ATV, and because this is a b-movie horror, it explodes out of nowhere. But this instance is saved by a stunt effect that is better than what we got in Shark Attack 3: Megalodon. Both actually came out the same year, interesting fact.

Also, boomerang ax (at least I think it's an ax)

I'm starting to feel like the female judge is less Sally Hardesty and more... bimbo who takes a shower when a killer is in the area. But take this with a grain of salt until the body is found.

But in the meantime, it's time for theorization, and even now they're still skeptical. Okay fair, but at least understand something wrong is afoot, which they do, go figure. Not like talking's gonna solve much, aside from retread what we learned in the beginning. But to be fair, he carries it out in a way that's easy to understand. At this point, one or the other would've worked, and the runtime would still be in the high 70s, but wait, the high 80s are the way to go.

I bring this up because the guy's description is easier to go by, but I question how he was able to pick up on many of these details. Must've been a slow day in history class.

The knife to this throat is how long it drags out, points for a little added perspective but anyone could've picked up on it based on what they saw if they thought hard enough for it. Then again people made I Hate Everything famous and who even knows about him anymore?

Anyhow, two expected deadmeats arrive back to the camp to join the survivors, and hey, the black guy didn't die first, this is basically a classic. By the way, he is played by Eugene Byrd, who would go on to appear in Bones.

They spend some time justifying why they're still on the island, enough to mess with nit-picky naysayers. Some want to remain out of the woods, others just want to save whoever else may be out there.

We're almost to what should be our final confrontation with the piñata, once we get through the long wandering and perspective shots. We know he's out there and likely sees us. But soon we find the bloodied corpse of... some deer. I'd question if deer can populate what seems to be a remote island, but maybe they could.

The black guy (or Doug), decided he lived enough for one day and sets himself up for a kill, but the piñata is like "Nah, too easy, I already made sure he didn't die first, gotta honor him the way I honored the others.", and soon after he bites it. Why did the piñata choose lynching I'll never know. And hey, soul leaves body, literally.

Also with a pair who parts for the camp, I feel tempted to make a Rest Stop joke, but I doubt many of you know what I'm talking about. But fuck it, oh girl, if you piss now your friend will be gone. No seriously, that's the start to Rest Stop, this is what happens in this scene, the one who takes a piss loses the person they're with.

At this point the survivor in this is Sally Hardesty, she already has a similar outfit, sans bellbottoms and a skankier look.

The hero guy finds panties on a tree and gets pissed off to the point he stabs a tree. He soon finds that female judge, and now she's the Sally Hardesty as the other girl, heh, wouldn't it be funny if she died at the campsite?

How could a giant piñata monster fit in a tent and close it?

I dunno, how could our heroes remain behind a tree through to the night and the piñata not see them? This is starting to become stupid isn't it?

Anyhow, our means to an end? Blowing it the fuck up, when we get to it, thankfully the explosion scene isn't that bad, a bit cliche, but not that bad.

We then conclude with a director's cameo, and what looks to be ProJared, thank god he kept the receipts.

It ends with a refusal to answer about what happened, then we get a jump-scare. Points for them here not being overkill, but it got forced at this point.

In Closing

I only really got bored around the time they were setting up how to kill the piñata, but by then the movie was almost over.

The CG effects... actually got worse as the movie went on, but I'm not gonna lose my shit over that, why should I? There was more variance in the cheese factor and plot in Gamebox 1.0, but for this, it actually had characters I cared about, before they were axed, I was in it for longer than I wasn't, the cheesy dialog actually works, and the idea is unique in principle.

Bad CG aside, the piñata had a unique look, probably would've looked just as silly if it was just a rubber suit. I noticed a pattern where they play suspenseful music, then keep it silent, then a scare occurs. It works in some areas, but not in others.

Would I ever watch this again? Probably not, but I wouldn't say it was near 90 minutes I'd never get back, it was either this or nothing for today, and it was time well spent. I could've spent it seeing some pretentious douche lose their shit over bad special effects, but I didn't, because I don't need to pretend I know a lot.