Short Take: Beyond its obvious faults it delivers exactly what it advtertises, and then some

Director: Alexandre Aja (High Tension, The Hills Have Eyes (2006))

Screenwriters: Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg (Sorority Row)

Cast: Elizabeth Shue (Hamlet 2), Christopher Lloyd (Camp Nowhere), Ving Rhames (Surrogates), Jerry O’Connell (Obsessed), Adam Scott (TV’s Party Down)

Length: 1h 30m

Synopsis: After a subterranean tremor causes a rift that conjoins a mysterious underwater lake with the aboveground Lake Victoria community, a prehistoric predator proceeds to roam free and eat at will. That predator is the very first breed of Piranha, which are thousands strong and eager to feed on fresh meat. It just so happens that these ferocious fish escape during Spring Break, when every virile teenager and college student within fifty miles is congregating to drink, fornicate, and unknowingly serve themselves up as dinner. Gratuitous nudity and violence ensues on a level not seen in American theaters in some time.

Analysis: For starters, if you really have to ask what Piranha 3D is all about, then perhaps your lack of understanding should indicate that you are not a member of its target audience. If all things poorly acted, naked, and/or bloody do not appeal to you, then you should continue your life contently disinterested in this film. However, if tongue-in-cheek horror is something you not only enjoy but savor, then look no further than this decadent display of depravity. Like the movie’s predecessor (Piranha (1978)) it shamelessly robs from the exceedingly more successful and superior Jaws (1975). And so comfortable is the movie with this fact that Richard Dreyfuss himself has an up-front cameo identified in the credits as Matt Hooper, which was his character in Jaws. Narratively, almost the exact same premise is used from Spielberg’s breakout hit: An aquatic predator lays claim to the waters near a small community dependent upon summer tourism, where the town sheriff and a hired scientist are the only real heroes available to save the day. That Piranha 3D steals from Jaws is incidental, but it could also arguably be yet another layer to this self parodying horror show – but more on that later.

Let’s take a minute to talk about the gore. The first thing to mention is that there is so much of it, and this is the first indication that the film is meant to be taken as more of a laugh-inducing parody than a legitimate attempt at scaring anyone, though it may. Like with Peter Jackson’s Braindead/Dead Alive, here gore, in its extreme excessiveness, is intended to be a comedic device. One has to keep in mind, though, that the particular comedic string being struck is not shared by most people. Those who are members of the film’s target audience carry with them an attitude that regards gore simply as a story enhancer, and by this same token (in considering gore to be nothing overly appalling) it is a subcultural inside joke that leaves those who detest it on the outside looking in. As much of a story enhancer as it may be from a visual standpoint, though, it proves to be excessive when it fails to further the plot to any degree – which is the vast majority of the time. But while this might be a negative in other films, excessiveness works here like it does in most comedies in that the plot is usually so thin and basic that it leaves plenty of room for “inessential” content. It is important to note, however, that this unessential content, or what is being shown in excess (in this case gore), has a place on the horror genre’s custom list of normalities. Comedies often take something considered normal (say, a groundskeeper trying to kill a gopher) and apply the concept of excessiveness to make it funny (say, blowing up a golf course as a means to that end). Taking something normal in any genre and integrating it with excessiveness is a way of bridging that genre with comedy, and Piranha 3D uses an excess of gore as a means to do that. So, not only does the large amount of gore not drag down the story, it’s arguably the crutch that holds it up. In addition, the film’s 3D effects were probably meant to act as a way of augmenting or stressing this effort (one might think that perhaps Oscar Metenier might be jealous if he were alive today).

What Piranha 3D is perhaps trying to be is the ultimate splatter movie. Not only does it have an inordinate amount of on-screen blood and violence but also plenty of nudity (for which they cast the famous chests of Kelly Brook and Riley Steele), which at one point is affectionately displayed underwater in slow motion and with a Beethoven overscore. Gratuitousness, it seems, is the driving concept behind every aspect of the film. But the ultimate splatter movie needs more than boobs and blood does it not? It must also be conscious of its inspirations, which are many in number (the biggest one being, as we said, Jaws). For example, at one point a man uses a speedboat propeller to fend off piranha, which could be an allusion to a scene in Braindead/Dead Alive when the protagonist in that movie fights off zombies by holding a lawnmower blades-forward. Also, we can notice horror director Eli Roth in a bit part, so that satisfies the requirement of having an established horror celebrity in a cameo (IMDb reports that Joe Dante and James Cameron were asked to make appearances, but their schedules conflicted). Everything taken as one lump sum makes Piranha 3D a shamelessly and gloriously exploitative entry into the splatter camp subgenre, regardless of whether you consider it “ultimate” or not. If given a choice between this and another watered down PG-13 remake of a Japanese horror film, my guess is American horror audiences would choose the former 8 times out of 10.

Rating: 7.0