Film Review: Mega Piranha (2010)

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SYNOPSIS:

A mutant strain of giant ferocious piranha escape from the Amazon and eat their way toward Florida.

REVIEW: 

Written & Directed by: Eric Forsberg
Starring: Tiffany, Paul Logan, Barry Williams, David Labiosa 

QUICK FIX:
A mutant strain of viciously hungry, genetically-altered piranha escape from a super-secret, G-14 classified South American lab and go on a rampage all up and down the Orinoco River. As they keep munching on everything from cows to boats to us good human folk along their journey, and growing in size while multiplying at an incredible rate, it soon leads them to the Amazon. And if they can’t be contained in the Amazon, well HO-lee jumped-up bald-headed Jesus palomino – they’ll hit the Atlantic and swallow Cuba whole on their way to quenching their thirst in Margaritaville by swimming straight up Jimmy Buffett’s ass once they hit our shores. 

Oh, and did I mention that the entire Venezuelan Army (or at least one Ford Explorer full of them, anyway) are trying to throw their own sea-monkey in the wrench??? Thankfully, on our side we have overachiever scientist Tiffany, Navy SEAL and Lorenzo Lamas clone Logan, and top-flight US government official Barry “I’m the REAL Greg Brady” Williams kicking ass for us. Aw hell naw – those overgrown pointy-toothed CGI sushi don’t stand a f*cking chance now… 

RAMBLINGS:
Okay folks, if you don’t know about my Saturday night ritual with my daughter and the SyFy premieres by now, ask me later, as I don’t want everyone else carping on me by me retreading it again (this week, anyway). But let me just say that for the first time in a very long time, we were extremely psyched for this one…enough so that I made my patented Roadkill chip dip to go along with the usual nachos and popcorn. So very, very, very many times in months past, especially since changing their name to the Hot Topic trendiness of SyFy, said channel has let us down consistently on Saturday nights for quite some time now. MEGA SHARK vs. GIANT OCTOPUS came close, granted, to breaking that cycle and was awesome cheesy fun, but even with it starring The Great Lamas himself, it still didn’t elate us to that point of saying DAMN – that’s some kickass schlock. But the MEGA PIRANHA trailer running on SyFy had us more than curious and more than a little stoked. And this was no dead fish, folks…in the immortal words of the late, great, Douglas Adams – “You can tune a guitar, but you can’t tuna fish. Unless you play bass.” 

Tons of credit has to go to writer/director Forsberg here. Coming from an extensive Second City background, the dude HAD to have had his tongue firmly implanted in his cheek while making this flick; and if he didn’t, well then, I suppose I have completely misread his intentions. But you know what? I don’t really care one way or the other, as this movie was the most enjoyably epic cheesefest I’ve seen in years. It doesn’t take a brain sturgeon to figure out that this flick wasn’t meant to be taken that seriously, but just to have fun with it and enjoy the ride. 

And you know, speaking of enjoyable cheese, I can’t help but to think of a sequel with a hybrid slant here – we’ve seen some pretty cool “Mega” movies recently, and folks out there, myself included, are always up for some “VS” movies as well. This flick started in the Orinoco River, which is also home to the pale and scary-looking yet also incredibly rare and endangered Orinoco Crocodile. That’s right folks, I’m throwing this out there to The Asylum right now – MEGA PIRANHA vs. GIANT ORINOCO CROCODILE. Hurry before I trademark that title and idea, and write it myself. Or, just mail my 25% to me in the next couple of days…your call. 

Oh, we haven’t talked about the acting yet, have we? Well…Tiffany, between this one and NECROSIS, has now officially thrown her hat into the ring to challenge her former mall-singing buddy from the 80s, Deborah “Don’t f*cking call me Debbie anymore” Gibson for the title of modern-day Queen of Schlock. And lest we forget Barry Williams….awesome to see him on my TV again in a non-Brady capacity, and portraying an actual good guy to boot. I fully believe that if he were 15 years younger, he’d have been right out there in the water kicking some fishy ass with the rest of them!! 

Paul Logan deserves his own paragraph here. The man has graced our TV screens in recent years with SyFy premieres in the likes of MEGAFAULT, THE TERMINATORS, and KOMODO vs. COBRA. While I’ll say that he isn’t quite ready to have the torch passed to him from Lorenzo Lamas yet, if he keeps this up, then he’s well on his way to earning his place as at least a Prince Lamas, Jr., or something along those lines. I say, if Lorenzo isn’t available, then call Paul Logan! His SEAL, Finch, was the ultimate in Schlock-filled cinematic badassery. No one (other than Lorenzo Lamas, that is) could, in but one movie, single-handedly take on a swarming school of hungry mutant piranha with nothing more than a knife, defeat all six members of the Venezuelan army all by himself, recharge a cell phone battery with his super-saliva, and bicycle-kick a sh*tload of attacking fishies Liu-Kang-in-Mortal-Kombat-style….oh, HELLS YES!!! 

LAST WORDS:
It may sound to the casual reader that I am in fact mocking this flick and everything it stands for. I can assure you that I am most certainly NOT doing that. I love cheesy, schlocky movies, IF they’re done right, and there’s also a very warm spot in my heart for giant mutant fish flicks…and this my friends, is the new King. I have not witnessed nor enjoyed Grand Schlocky Cheese on anywhere near this scale since the premiere of FRANKENFISH lo’ those many years ago…and yes, dammit, that’s a very high compliment. The DVD streets on April 27th, so all lovers of Cheese & Schlock need to pre-order this sucker and eagerly await its arrival to your mailbox later this month. Trust me, this sucker is fun with a capital F-U….N, and so I leave you with this: 

MEGA PIRANHA, I hereby officially proclaim you to be THE best SyFy Channel original Saturday night premiere….EVER!!!

Now available Mega Piranha – on 3 film bluray set from Echo Bridge

MegaPiranha (2010)