PIRANHA 3D

Dimension Films
NOW PLAYING

What movie this summer offers both full-frontal nude girls making out underwater and a razor sharp toothed fish belch up a half eaten penis? Why PIRANHA 3D of course! Seriously, I LOVED this movie! This is what summer movies are all about, naked bodies and violent malevolent carnage! Director Alexandre Aja (The Hills Have Eyes remake) reinvents the 70's camp horror film with gore as gruesome as it is hilarious when an earthquake cracks open a subterranean cavernous lake beneath Lake Victoria unleashing a swarm a prehistoric carnivorous fish hell bent on turning a sea of scantily clad college age douche bags partying at the lakes annual spring break fest into dinner. I knew it was going to be good (in the worst way) when the opening cameo is JAWS veteran Richard Dreyfuss getting shredded. Other notable cameos are the essential Christopher Lloyd as Mr. Goodman the local fish expert and totally incidental Eli Roth as the Wet T-Shirt host. This mostly by-the-book horror remake is spattered with intense gore to rival any celluloid blood bath, no joke, the carnage on the shore looks like MTV Spring Break meets the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan, especially when a girl being carried out of the water by two men literally falls in half. Gruesome/awesome. Steven R. McQueen, Grandson of actor Steve McQueen, makes his big screen debut as the reluctant 'location scout' for pervy, taquilla chugging, coke snorting, womanizing "Wild Wild Girls" porn-maker Derrick Jones, played by Jerry O'Connell, whose aforementioned severed penis also makes its big screen debut in disturbing 3D to the horror of myself and my movie going pals, "Too far! Too far!" we exclaim. It was definitely exactly what I was expecting and was not disappointed, and neither will you if go expecting nothing more from this summer gem but camp, shredded-to-the-bone gore and more naked breasts than you can shake a meat eating fish at.

On a side note, the movie is already stirring up controversy before its opening as O'Connell's role is reportedly so akin to real life "Girls Gone Wild" mogul Joe Francis that (according to Reuters) Francis has threatened swift litigation if any defamatory or disparaging statements, or depictions, in the media or in the film itself portray him in a false light.

-MM