Bride Of The Killer Piñata [Film Review]
The Bride Of The Killer Piñata
Released: TBC
Director: Stephen Tramontana
Starring: Eliza-Jane Morris, Natalie Younger, Eric Bays, Megan Renner Rieck, Edward Neequaye, Joette Waters
Just when I think I’ve seen all horror has to offer - like killer donuts and psycho car tyres - another movie comes along to prove me wrong. That movie was 2015's Killer Piñata and this year the sequel Bride of the Killer Piñata is being released. I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek of the new movie.
If you’ve not heard about the Killer Piñata, let me fill you in quickly. A man goes to his local party store wanting to buy a piñata for his son’s birthday and despite the 100 piñatas on display, he insists he needs to buy the one with the “DO NOT SELL” sign around it’s neck. You know, typical white person in a horror movie behaviour. He leaves the store with three different piñatas and lets his son pick out which one he wants to obliterate. The scene takes a dramatic turn as Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake plays to the slow motion of the cute pink piñata being hung, the child bashing it to the point of decapitation while everyone cheers like they’re at an MMA match. The donkey piñata sits on the table and watches. The following night the family has gone away leaving their daughter Lindsay behind to hang out with her friends. She shows them the remaining piñatas out in the shed and the boys prove their masculinity by taking on Captain America. Again, donkey piñata witnesses another savage beating of a piñata pal, but this time he’s going to get his revenge. This is a piñata not to be messed with: He shits poisonous lollies, somehow has the dexterity and body strength to clobber people with sticks and shove them into rubbish bins and he can reanimate the dead. While all this is happening, the party store Shopkeeper is out hunting for the donkey piñata vowing to end his reign of terror. She failed, and so now we have Bride Of The Killer Piñata.
Set 10 years later, Lindsay is married to Nat and trying to be a normal functioning adult couple with a baby after they spent years fighting an army of killer piñatas and have realised life is pretty mundane. KP (Killer Piñata) is still around and currently resides in a case in the basement, he just stopped moving one day and the fight was over. Now their biggest life battle is deciding who will put the baby to bed each night but somehow neither of them have noticed a unicorn piñata hiding in plain sight amongst the baby's toys.
Things are about to get spicy though. You’d think a serial killer specifically butchering white women in their 30s might be enough to keep them on their toes, but nope. After an unexpected visit from some creepy-looking guy claiming to be there to install security cameras but steals a set of house keys, he returns to the house the next day while they’re celebrating the 4th of July festivities with their friends Jimmy and Michelle. This time he’s dressed in some goth get-up and calling himself Lord Chain. Desperate to be seen as a badass, he’s been hired to find KP and bring him back. This ends badly for him and his henchmen after finding the two piñatas in the basement. With strict instruction to kill the other piñata, KP comes back to life to save the day and end theirs. It’s love at first sight for the two piñatas as LP (aka Loving Piñata) explains she’s been searching for KP in the hopes he can help her remember how she ended up as a piñata. As they head off on their murderous spree resulting in Michelle’s death, LP’s memory comes back and we discover she was one of the serial killer’s victims and her soul went into the cute piñata she kept.
When Lindsay and Nat arrive home they know something isn’t right and Nat is just a little too excited to find three dead bodies in the basement. Killer Piñata is back just in time to save their marriage! They hire a babysitter and get ready to patrol the neighbourhood to hunt the Killer Piñata one more time.
Director Stephen Tramontana (he also co-wrote and edited the film) proves a small budget is no excuse to create a subpar film. The Bride Of The Killer Piñata had a budget of $17,000 and they’ve produced an awesome sequel, filled with laughs and gross practical effects to keep horror fans happy. The first thing I noticed between the two films was how much more screen time the piñatas have. They’ve added some puppeteering to the mix so there’s a range of movement giving them much more personality, which also means we get to see more of them during fight scenes. There’s obviously some limitations with practical effects, but when a scene has a piñata with a dead stare masturbating the guy next to him you’re not really going to be concerned with the fact you can’t see what his hands are doing.
The wrong actors could easily make a subject like this cringy, but everyone did a brilliant job of delivering the drama and seriousness their roles needed (or in Lord Chain's case, Casey Brockway brought the ridiculousness). A shoutout has to go to Eric Bays (who plays Jimmy) for being so effortlessly funny. The scene where his wife Michelle dies is one of the funniest in the whole film. I’ve watched this movie twice and I laughed just as hard on the 2nd viewing. Bride Of The Killer Piñata wouldn't be complete without a few nods to the Bride Of Frankenstein either.
Overall a very fun film and proof that a sequel can surpass the original.
Review by Katie Torrance
Score: 4/5
Keep up to date via the studio Angry Mule Films!
Angry Mule Films is finalizing distribution plans for Bride Of The Killer Pinata and currently aiming for a June release. In the meantime make sure you check out Killer Pinata streaming on Tubi TV.
