I'm actually talking about Spring Break. That time of year that lets wild, drunken college kids loose on an unsuspecting society. The baseline level of debauchery that enables slasher films. Boobs and booze fuckin' EVERYWHERE!! The days of illegal narcotics and tourism.
And so begins my review of Alexandre Aja's 2010 B-Movie awesomeness, Piranha 3D.
In a shout-out to Jaws, Oscar™ Winner Richard Dreyfus gives us a cameo as Matt Hooper who is now a belligerent drunk, fishing, humming "Show Me The Way To Go Home" and drinking beer when an earthquake hits Lake Havasu, releasing a school of prehistoric piranha and a huge whirlpool which, for some dumb-ass reason, refuses to actually lower the water level of the lake when it empties into the new set of caverns. And why the fuck is it called a "school" of piranha? Because they're fish? Isn't that all kinds of fish-racist? Do all kinds of fish look alike to you, Aja? Is that what you're trying to say? Henceforth, a school of Piranha shall be known as a "Nibble". Take that, you racist bastard!
I cutchoo, mang!
So, anyway, as I said, it's Spring Break and the grandson of Steve McQueen is all, "I wanna play, too, but my mom (Oscar™ Winner Elizabeth Shue) is the sheriff and she won't stop invading my privacy while I surf internet porn and thinks that I live to be her babysitter." He manages to get a gig showing an imported porn king the "sweet spots" of the lake in which to shoot porn. Underwater porn. Naked 3D water ballet. Woo.
So, anyway, people start going missing, the sheriff is called in to investigate, her kid pays her other two kids to cover for him while he enables underwater porn. The two remaining children go fishing and get caught out on the lake. Porn boat hits a rock. Fish mangle tourists. Eli Roth is one of them. That gives me a happy.
Ving Rhames with an outboard mower. You're welcome.
Poster boy for idiotic teenager manages to lure all of the fish to the sinking porn boat. Coked-out porn dude gets eaten. We get treated to severed penis. Because everyone needs severed penis. Idiot teen's wannabe girlfriend is trapped inside. He rescues her and manages to rig an explosion. Piranhas are dead, HOORAY!!
Yep. Safety harness. Because that's gonna be on every boat, ever.
Yeeeeah.
This movie? You would think that I hate it but I totally don't. This is yet another movie specifically made to be a horror comedy and I LIVE for it! Remember that the original was meant to be a Jaws spoof, too.
It tosses us pretty much ALL of the "terror on the ocean" tropes and confines them to a lake. It gives us a mad scientist, and "Oh, no, there are THOUSANDS of them and they're unstoppable!" It gives us Michael Bay levels of mayhem! It gives us Elizabeth Shue trying to pay the mortgage! There's carnage and mayhem and it's pretty much a consistent roller-coaster ride the whole way through. EXPLOSIONS!! Aja totally knows how to deliver both the gore AND the shock.
And, for serious, Aja let his inner pervert out to play, too. This is not only a fantastic, shut-your-brain-off horror flick, he also brought in the throngs of horny teenagers with the lure of boobs which, while it's not exactly NEW, is marketing gold. Half of the movie is a horrific love letter to "Girls Gone Wild". 'Cause I haven't seen THIS many titties in a horror movie in a LONG time. Not that I really have a problem with it. I'm a gay dude but a pretty boob is a pretty boob and I can appreciate them.
I probably could have done without the underwater ballet but whattayagonnado?
Finally, I DID pay the $13 bucks to see this in the theater. The 3D for this felt right. It wasn't tacked on and the creature effects were kind of amazing. I'm not quite sure how those fish would actually swim but they worked for me. They had an almost intelligent malevolence to them. I like them.
This is silliness-on-a-stick and I adore it. You don't gotta.
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