It’s been highly anticipated and extremely high on the list of must-sees for every adolescent teenage boy for months now. But finally Alexandre Aja’s (‘The Hills Have Eyes’, ‘Haute Tension’) horror comedy-fest ‘Piranha 3D’ has arrived. And it certainly doesn’t disappoint.
The whole concept to ‘Piranha 3D’ is the perfect tone of tongue-in-cheek. It’s an homage to late 70’s b-movie flicks that were there to entertain, to be fun splatterfest’s. Any movie’s biggest enemy is when it takes itself far to seriously and fails to engage the audience with it’s pretentiousness or lack of heart. Aja’s creation here is a perfect blend of horror and comedy and is a true compliment to Joe Dante’s classic 1978 original.
For those of you whom have been living under a goddamn rock for the past few months have not only missed a slew of pics of topless babes, clips and more but also what it’s all been about. It’s Spring break on Lake Victoria and the 50,000 strong visiting college guys and gals and enthralled in sun, sex, booze and boobies. Although their fun soon switches to terror after a sudden underwater tremor sets free scores of the prehistoric man-eating fish.
Local sheriff and her deputy played by Elisabeth Shue and Ving Rhames respectively discover the boat and washed up corpse of local Matt Hooper (yes Richard Dreyfuss’ very own character he played in ‘Jaws’). After trying to figure out what happened a team of seismologists, including Novak played by Adam Scott, show up to find out what the underwater tremor has unveiled. Jerry O’Connell plays Derrick Jones, the host of Wild Wild Girls, his popular 18+ entertainment site which he has chosen Lake Victoria as his latest location. Steven R. McQueen, Jessica Szohr, Kelly Brook and Riley Steele (whom get totally nude by the way!) join Derrick on his boat and head out to sea only to come across – you’ve guessed it – some angry little fishys.
I took my girlfriend to watch this in spite of her overwhelming trepidations of the film, which mostly revolved around the expectation of uber-boobage, and other such jiggling. However, even she was entertained thoroughly. It’s a good old fashioned monster/slasher-type horror that gives you your exploitation, your tits and bits and a shed load of gore. Yes there is a heap of porn stars scattered through the movie, yes there is a wet t-shirt contest and yes there is a fully frontal girl-on-girl underwater lesbian swim. But it’s all in good fun and so even the ladies out there should get a kick out of this.
There is of course a battlefield scene of thousands of party-goers alongside thousands of flesh-eating fish with doesn’t end without a drop or two of blood. But this isn’t no Disney movie. The gore is hard and fast, splattering across the screen for what feels like an eternity. You can always rely on director Aja to deliver the goods in the gore department and he has excelled himself here with some truly sick, shocking and stomach-churningly good effects.
With this new influx of 3D technology and seemingly every movie franchise around jumping on the next dimension bandwagon there’ll become a time when it will all become a little lacklustre and unexciting. Yet it’s the perfect enhancer of horror. And Aja has utilised this technology in many ways to scare or sicken the audience in various ways. It reminded me a lot of ‘Friday the 13th: Part 3-D’ in its varied uses of ‘almost’ forced gimmicky 3D moments. Yet it worked.
OVERALL SUMMARY
The performances are a tad blasé and some of the dialogue is almost purposely underwhelming but it’s all surely intentional to help ice this fun little creature feature. There’s a few cameos, fun sight gags, lesbianism, boobs and the occasional ‘Jaws’ nod thrown in so guys you have got yourself a horror popcorn movie of the highest standard. Although one word of warning, be prepared to sit through a heck of a lot of ads and trailers before the main feature as this is one short film!
