It's Spring Break on a beautiful lake in Arizona, but a recent seismic eruption
has opened a fissure between the surface lake and another lake beneath it. The lower
lake is filled with ancient creatures thought extinct for millions of years,
predecessors to the modern ... well, I guess you know that from the title.
Drunken, undressed college kids and vicious primitive carnivores! What better
combination is there? And now it's in 3D.
Jerry O'Connell is funny in a parody of Joe Francis, the Girls Gone Wild
entrepreneur and
Gawker's choice as douchebag of the decade. Elisabeth Shue takes the plot
seriously as the sheriff. Ving Rhames uses an outboard motor to kick some
Piranha ass, or gill, or something. Kelly Brook and Riley Steele do a naked
underwater ballet. College kids get sliced and diced en masse. Christopher Lloyd
plays a sort of eccentric professor. Richard Dreyfuss needs a bigger boat.
Well, by God, if ya gotta do something, do it right.
Piranha is exactly what a genre film ought to be. It neither cuts corners nor pulls
punches on the violence and nudity and humor. It's very silly when it tries to
be, and very intense when it wants to be. Given the existence of Troma, I don't
know how many campy ultra-gore movies we need, but if you would like one movie
this year in which all the human flesh is either fully exposed or ripped from
human bones, I reckon this is it.
