Piranha 3D (**)

Directed by: Alexandre Aja

Starring: Elisabeth Shue, Adam Scott, Steven R. McQueen, Ving Rhames, Jerry O’Connell, Jessica Szohr, Kelly Brook, Riley Steele, Christopher Lloyd, Richard Dreyfuss, Eli Roth

Seen: November 1st 2010

** Out of ****

Whoever does not know what exploitation cinema is and wants to experience it first hand should definitely go see Piranha, in 3D. This movie happily takes ridiculous gore and gratuitous flesh and starts racing with it towards such an over-the-top problem statement and eventual and rather easy resolution that you will either walk out before the movie gets halfway through or gleefully (and rather guiltily) allow the craziness to swamp you. Somewhere during the race the movie reaches terminal speed, but at only about 30% into its running time, and then it simply continues acceleration. You think Kill Bill’s Crazy 88 fight was gory and over-the-top? Next to Piranha that is morning programming for your children to watch before age 5. Piranha is a remake of a 1978 JAWS spoof, and this one raises the bar on exploitation… comedy?

The movie starts with Richard Dreyfuss playing, according to the actor himself, a parody and near-reincarnation of the character he himself played in JAWS in 1975. Even the song he listens to on his radio, Show Me the Way to Go Home, is the same song he sang in JAWS 35 years ago. His character Matthew Boyd is fishing and enjoying a few cold beers out on Lake Victoria. Deep below the water, the earth shakes and a gigantic rock fissure open up, releasing a swarm of very angry fish – in the panic Matthew loses control, falls overboard, and gets devoured in seconds.

This small prelude is followed by an introduction to the town, Lake Victoria is having spring break, and students are flocking to the lake to party and drink and generally be rambunctious to a degree which lives up to the movie itself. In the chaos Jake Forester (McQueen, grandson of Steve McQueen) runs into Kelly (Szohr), who he has always had a crush on, but she soon leaves with two “cooler” guys. Straight after Jake meets Derrick Jones (O’Connell), a shameless pornographer who hires him to show him around town and the lake to scout locations. Jake has to bribe his little brother and sister to get to go with Derrick the next day, as his mother, Sherriff Julie Forester (Shue), has him on a tight leash.

Soon enough things go pear-shaped, as more and more people turn up dead, completely mutilated by the aggressive little carnivores who swarm in and devour whoever gets in the water, and things turn into a drastic and desperate fight for survival as hundreds of students and teens struggle to get out of the bloody, boiling water. People are mutilated in more ways than just by the fish, and the gratuitous nature won’t sit well with 95% of viewers, I know I was disturbed by most of what I saw. Even Eli Roth, director of the torture-porn Hostel movies and the Bear Jew from Inglourious Basterds, has a cameo as a wet T-shirt competition host – no expense spared to exploit anything they can…

Piranha is schlock of the purest grade, it rams gore and ridicule onto the viewer with such merriment that it is hard to believe the movie is just rated 16. I won’t recommend Piranha, as it defies anything moralistic with disdain, but it sure is something to behold.