I have never used this library but I do expect this change will shed some light on your problem (namely that your $image object is never actually created)–

my $ec2 = VM::EC2->new( -access_key  => "5454fgfffh",
                        -secret_key  => "dscsdcsd",
                        -endpoint    => 'http://ec2.amazonaws.com',
                        -raise_error => 1 );
[download]

Note that the code you posted is slightly broken (missing quote in the args to new) and will not even compile as it stands.