When writing my blog entries, I generally make some token effort to avoid major spoilers. DVD write-ups are obviously the exception, as there’s kind of a statute of limitations to how long you can keep a secret about movies. Still, I do try to avoid spoilers so that any of my readers (all twelve of you, bless your hearts) who want to see the movie in question can get the full experience for themselves. But for this one, can we please just cut the shit?
Seriously, the movie is called Piranha 3D (or just Piranha, as it appeared in the opening credits). Just from the title, you know what you’re going to get. What’s more, anyone with half a brain cell could sit through the first fifteen minutes and predict with 100% accuracy who’s going to live and who’s going to die. This movie does not have a plot, just a premise.
The premise is that a small quake in Arizona unleashes millions of prehistoric carnivorous fish, just as thousands of teens and twenty-somethings come in for Spring Break. Leaving aside the implausibility of a Cancun-sized Spring Break gathering in Middle-Of-Nowhere, Arizona, let’s just think about this premise. In one location, we have untold hundreds of moronic, drunk, coked-up, horny, half-to-fully naked sluts and douchebags, all gathered in one place to get wet, wasted and laid. It’s not even a question of if they’ll get killed off, but who’s going to be first.
The answer’s a shocker: None of them. It’s not the black cop either, though he all but openly declares that he’s only got two days left until retirement. It’s not even the two marine biologists who are stupider and more careless than two educated professionals have any right to be. Oh, they all die horribly, don’t get me wrong. They’re just not the first.
No, the first one to die in this movie is Richard Dreyfuss. Yes, you read that right. Matt Hooper hisownself is turned to fish food in the film’s prologue. What’s more, though his name isn’t given in the film, the credits give his character’s name as Matt Hooper! And it doesn’t stop with him. The standard old eccentric scientist who somehow knows everything about the fishes? It’s Christopher Lloyd. And even if the character is named Dr. Goodman, Lloyd is still quite clearly playing Dr. Emmett Brown for the occasion. And for the more modern schlock fans, we have Eli Roth making a cameo before he’s killed off in spectacular fashion.
Oh, the blood in this movie flows. The film starts out with a few killings here and there (including a brief and pointless scene of some guy getting chomped), but it isn’t until the spree at Spring Break that the water really starts running red. This movie positively revels in how it finds new and fresh ways to kill someone off, especially when it uses 3D toward that end. Seriously, just use your own imagination to think of how 3D could enhance the sight of grown people getting eaten by dozens of tiny fish. Now multiply it by a couple hundred people mauled, to the power of “totally fucked up,” and you’d be in the ballpark.
And of course, with blood in entertainment comes titties, its lovely wife and business partner. The premise alone should clue you in to all the excuses this movie finds for nudity and sexuality, but again, I can guarantee that your imagination is only scratching the surface. Maybe this will help: Imagine — if you will — two buxom, barely legal women, totally nude, making out. While floating underwater. To classical music. In 3D. That’s the kind of movie we’re dealing with here. But don’t worry if you prefer men. There’s cock in here, too: It’s the dismembered one floating toward the audience before it gets eaten by a piranha.
It should already be clear by this point just how the movie utilizes 3D. The piranhas themselves all but wink at the camera and things are constantly flying out at the audience. In fact, one character actually vomits into the camera. Seriously. These gimmick shots are only a couple of seconds long each, but the gimmick is heavily utilized nonetheless.
Aside from that, what can I say? I don’t feel that I really need to talk about the writing or the acting (why would anyone care?), though I will say that all the actors do a decent enough job with what they’re given. Honorary mentions to Brooklynn Proulx and Sage Ryan, the two child actors who are both surprisingly good.
From the moment that a protagonist of Jaws is eaten by fishes to the twist ending that sets up for a sequel against all odds and logic, it’s patently obvious that Piranha 3D knows exactly what it is. This movie was made purely for shock value and comedy, a parody and homage to the gimmicky slasher exploitation films of yesteryear. If you’re looking for horror, suspense and tension, keep looking. If you want to see some nameless teenaged slut’s eyeball floating out at you, go see this movie.
If you’re abhorred at the thought of a movie that exists only to show off gruesome kills and naked nubiles… well, just shut up and don’t see the movie. I won’t think any less of you, I promise.