Piranha 3D

Year of Release: 2010
Genre: Horror / Comedy
IMDB Rating: 6 / 10
Level of Awful: Medium

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

Better late than never! I had every intention of going to see this movie when it came out last year but for some reason just never got round to it. It’s a bit of a pity because the 3D would’ve added an extra little touch to this bloody boob fest. I remember watching the original Roger Corman version and its sequel many years ago and really enjoyed them, and since remakes / reinterpretations have not filled me with hope recently (Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street), I was a little sceptical going into this. It’s by no means a good movie; in fact it’s absolute trash. But it’s trash in the best way: there are boobs everywhere, completely over-the-top gore, two guest starring porn stars and an ensemble cast of people you vaguely recognise.

It's tragic when incontinence sets in at such an early age...

Our story takes place at Lake Victoria, Arizona during spring break. Off in the distance, away from the frolicking college co-eds, a local fisherman is enjoying a relaxing day of sunshine and a dozen beers. Today’s clearly not his lucky day because, just when he manages to land a fish, he spills his beer overboard. When the beer hits the bottom of the lake the sheer force of it seems to create an earthquake that splits the lake’s floor wide open (it may be coincidence that the two things happened at the same time, but I’m not entirely sure). This rift creates a whirlpool that begins sucking everything into it, including the fishing boat and about 100 lawn chairs that somehow found their way to the bottom of the lake. Unfortunately, in addition to sucking things in, the rift also lets something out: thousands upon thousands of hungry, nasty, angry piranhas. Having been trapped in a subterranean lake for however long these little fishies are hungry for some new food, and they make short work of the fisherman before beginning to spread out towards the party goers.

Tell me to 'just keep swimming' one more time and you're gonna get it!

In amongst the crowd of slutty females and drunken jocks (the youth of today, I tell you…) the important people are as follows: Sheriff Julie, her eldest son Jake, her younger kids Laura and Zane, Girls Gone Wild-esque film maker Derrick, Jake’s crush Kelly and Derrick’s main ‘actresses’ Danni and Crystal. Derrick has made Jake an offer he can’t refuse: he needs a local to show him all the hot spots in town where he can film girls at their most uninhibited and, in return, Jake can watch the girls at their most uninhibited. To cramp his style somewhat his mother has asked him to babysit his brother and sister while she tries to keep the college kids in order and find out why they’ve only managed to find half of the missing fisherman. As any red-blooded 17-year-old would do Jake agrees, bribes his siblings to stay home and takes off with Derrick, Crystal and Danni. As any unsupervised child would do Laura and Zane take the money, ignore instructions and take off onto the lake in their canoe. Their plan doesn’t pan out when they don’t tie it up properly and become stranded on an island, all blissfully unaware of the man-eating fish swimming through the lake.

♫ My heart will go OOOOOOOOOONNNNNNN! ♫

After a group of seismologists, sent in to investigate the subterranean lake beneath Lake Victoria, are eaten Sheriff Julie manages to capture one fish and take it to a friend of hers who specialises in studying piranhas (apparently). He concludes that these piranhas are meant to be extinct and must have survived under the lake for over 2 million years by cannibalising one another (surely this would shrink the gene pool considerably, but anyway). When Julie tries to evacuate the lake nobody takes much notice of her or her colleagues and, instead, start diving into the lake. Sadly this is roughly when the fish decide to turn up for lunch and what follows is the most spectacular, gory, disgustingly enjoyable scene of mass panic that includes a woman being scalped when her hair gets caught in a boat’s engine blades, a stage falling into the water and another girl breaking in two as she is carried out of the water. In amongst all this Julie must try and save Jake, Laura and Zane from a smutty, smutty boat while trying to avoid being eaten herself and attempt to rid her lake of these little beasts before tourism and property values begin to plummet.

It’s hardly faithful to the original, the piranhas are actually secondary to the breasts on display and I don’t recommend watching this after a bolognaise dinner, but it’s trashy watching at its absolute best.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• When scared of being eaten alive people just break apart.
• Economic considerations should be weighed against the possibility of tourists being eaten alive by fish.
• Being the sheriff’s son means that smutty directors will always do your bidding.
• Piranha eggs glow in the dark.
• Science has proven that when women skinny dip together, operatic music will begin echoing from the depths.
• Breasts moving at high speeds underwater contort in the most amazing ways imaginable.

PIRANHA 3D TRAILER