Film Review: Piranha 3DD (2012)

SYNOPSIS:

After the events at Lake Victoria, the pre-historic school of blood-thirsty piranhas make their way into a newly opened waterpark.

REVIEW:

“Josh cut off his penis because something came out of my vagina”! This dear acolytes is my nominee, actually the winner of the “Best line uttered by an actor/actress in a film” this year. And it was uttered in “Piranha 3DD”, the sequel to 2010’s “Piranha 3D” which was itself a remake of the Joe Dante classic of 1978. Now what was in this poor girl’s vagina that mads Josh go & get all snippy with his junk you might be asking? Well lemme tell you guys about the history behind this movie first…

“Piranha 3DD” went into production pretty quickly as it’s predecessor made a decent profit and was actually a fun little movie. It was supposed to be released last August but the month came and went without a nibble from the nasty little fishies. It was then announced as a November release (The film was a Weinstein Company release BTW) but again nary a bite from the prehistoric beasties was felt by the movie going public. What happened? No new official release date was announced and the film just seemed to be fated to sit on a shelf but all of a sudden it was released with no fanfare whatsoever on June 1st to a scant 83 theaters and VOD. As it was playing absolutely nowhere I opted to watch it at home and I wonder what the reason for all of the subterfuge was because while “Piranha 3DD” is hardly a classic, it’s no turkey either.

It takes place one year after the last film and the horror of the attack of the killer fish on Lake Victoria has ebbed away but the town has pretty much shut down because of the loss of revenue it received from tourists & spring breakers. A local water park which is co owned by Maddy (Danielle Panabaker) & her stepfather Chet (David Koechner) is about to reopen for business and Chet has some new ideas to make some good money this spring. He plans to reopen the park with an “Adult Only” section stocked with what he calls “Water Certified” strippers and a handy condom dispensing machine poolside, the new name of the park? “Big Wet”! and as an extra added enticement “Double D’s get in for free”! Of course Maddy doesn’t approve of this but her deceased mom left him 51% ownership of the park to Maddy’s 49% so majority rules and he goes ahead with his plans.

The film quickly introduces us to Maddy’s friends (Who all work at the park) and you can figure out pretty quickly who’s gonna make it to the end of the movie. We meet her ex boyfriend Kyle (Chris Zylka) who is a policeman, Barry (Matt Bush), Ashley (Meagan Tandy) & Shelby (Katrina Bowden). All of them fit the standard stereotypes you would expect to find in a film like this, character development is not something you’re looking for if you’re watching this movie. What you’re looking for is some hungry fish, a few laughs, nudity & copious amounts of blood. Luckily this flick pretty much delivers on all of those counts although it didn’t seem to be as gory as “Piranha 3D” was to me.

During a late night skinny dip with her boyfriend Josh (Jean Luc Bilodeau) Shelby is the unfortunate recipient of a Piranha swimming up her privates and it sorta makes itself at home up inside her because she not only doesn’t realize what happened to her (Although she suspects that Josh was touching her inappropriately), she just gets out of the lake without any ill effects whatsoever. Now before I continue any further I want to make what I just said perfectly clear to all of you. A PIRANHA SWAM UP HER VAGINA AND SHE DIDN’T REALIZE IT. There…I feel better now that I’m sure you understand what I’m talking about.

I guess it’s safe to say that you’ve figured out that Shelby is the one who utters that priceless line that I quoted at the beginning of this review. It happens when Shelby decides to lose her virginity to Josh and once he gets to doing the nasty with her he picks up something a lot worse than crabs from poor Shelby. He gets a Piranha attached to the end of his penis that just doesn’t want to let go so what does he do? He picks up a kitchen knife and lops off the tip of his pecker! This scene is one of the gorier scenes in the film and I gotta admit that it made me chuckle quite a bit just because it was so freaking ridiculous. BTW, Shelby comes out of the whole experience splattered in blood but besides the mess she comes out of the whole thing without any physical damage. I don’t know what was going on up inside of her while the fish was in there but apparently it was nice enough for it to just leave her alone & get all cozy.

Do I need to go any further? I don’t think so, you all can figure out what happens for the rest of this movie. The fish manage to migrate into the lake that the water park feeds into and on opening day all hell breaks loose as the fish just go to town and start chowing down on anyone they can get a grab of. It’s pretty much a carbon copy of the same scene that took place in “Piranha 3D” but on a smaller scale. The big attack scene didn’t feel like it had as much gusto as “Piranha 3D” or as much blood and guts either but it is pretty good as it stands and it features some pretty f*cked up kills in it, including one kill that doesn’t have a fish anywhere near it and isn’t even seen but it’s pretty f*cked up all the same. Although all of the actors do well enough the best acting (For me) came from David Hasselhoff who plays himself! He is hired as a “Guest Lifeguard” for opening day at the park and he does a really good job of sending himself up here. He obviously gets the joke and isn’t afraid to poke a little fun at himself during his short time on screen. Ving Rhames also has a short but needless cameo reprising his role of Deputy Fallon (Without the legs he lost in “Piranha 3D”) trying to get over his fear of water, he picked the wrong day and place to try that out but he happens to have a shotgun that attaches to one of his prosthetic legs and blasts away more than a few fishies. Christopher Lloyd also reprises his role of Carl Goodman, the marine biologist who figured out where the fish came from in the first place. We even get the unstoppable Gary Busey & Clu Gulager as a couple of bumpkins trying to retrieve a cow’s carcass from the lake in the beginning of the film. Now why was there a dead cow carcass floating in the lake and why are they trying to fish it out in the middle of the night? Does it really matter? Busey goes down chomping on the fish as they’re chomping on him….in 3D no less!

Make no mistake, this is not something you’re gonna remember after you see it. It’s really short as well, there are about 12 minutes of bloopers and outtakes that take place over the end credits to pad out the film’s extremely scant (About 70 minutes) running time but some of them are actually pretty funny as well so hang around to watch them. My biggest problem with this movie is that it felt like it wasn’t really being directed, it goes by so quickly that I got the sensation that it was pretty much a “One Take” kind of film. By that I mean it felt like director John Gulager (“Feast” 1,2 & 3) was happy with the first take of every scene he shot & moved on to the next one. At least as long as there were no flubbed lines anyway. It feels rushed and because of that I felt like I didn’t get my money’s worth.

But that’s a minor complaint since I watched it at home for seven bucks and it was in 3D to boot (You’ll need a 3D enabled TV to watch it at home unless you don’t mind watching it all blurry). It has enough blood, boobs & laughs to make it worth a watch for sure. It’s not as good as the last entry but once again I wasn’t expecting “Lawrence Of Arabia” here. I got what I paid for and I enjoyed it, I think you will too. My biggest question is why didn’t it get a bigger theatrical release? It reportedly had a $20 million dollar budget and for that kind of money I would think the Weinstein’s would have fought for a 1000-1500 theater release. The audience is there for pablum like this and I think it would have broken even at the very worse.

Three shrouds for “Piranha 3DD“! It does what it’s supposed to do and it does it fairly well. Good performances from an attractive cast and some nice homages tossed in as well (“Nightmare On Elm Street” & “Scooby Doo” get shout outs). And it’s got the Hoff in it as well! You could do way worse than this acolytes. If you have a chance to see it in a theater do so or if you can purchase it on VOD as I did (I watched it on VUDU) then see it that way. It cost half of what it would’ve cost in a theater & looked just as good on a 3D enabled television. It’s good bloody fun for all!

Piranha 3DD is now on Bluray per Anchor Bay Entertainment

Piranha 3DD (2012)