Title: Piranha 3DD
Director: John Gulager
Released: 2012
Staring: Danielle
Panabaker, Matt Bush, David Koechner, Chris Zylka, Katrina Bowden, Gary Busey,
Christopher Lloyd, David Hasselhoff, Ving Rhames
Plot: After the events of “Piranha 3D” Lake
Victoria has become inhabitable in an attempt to eliminate the
threat of the pre-historic piranhas. However they continue to thrive as they
now move upstream, soon finding their way into a newly opened waterpark.
Review: Since I was a kid, I’ve always had this irrational
fear when using the local swimming pool, that a hatch would open somewhere in
the pool and unleash a giant killer shark or some equally horrific creature from whatever movie I'd been watching that week
to attack the unwitting swimmers. No doubt this could be linked to “Jaws”
scaring my fragile child psyche from a young age, especially seeing how beyond
unlikely such a thing would be to ever happen. Then of course comes along this
movie to dig up all those fears again!
Coming a mere two years after “Piranha 3D” one of the more
surprisingly good remakes of recent years as Alexandre Aja proved himself the
king of the horror remakes, having successfully also remade “The Hills Have
Eyes” and “In The Mirror”, however here he continues his trend of not returning
for the sequels, as the reigns of the franchise are now passed over to Gulager
who previously had directed the cult “Feast” trilogy, whose writers Patrick
Melton and Marcus Dunstan also being brought on board to write the script,
before Joel Soisson a man who is no stranger to DTV movies having wrote the
script for the DTV sequels to Hollow Man, Mimic, aswell as the “Pulse” movies
and seeing how at one point this film was too heading for a DTV release
something especially rumored for the UK, it’s no surprise that the studio
looked to him to rewrite the script. Still seeing how much fun “Piranha 3D” was
with it’s heavy mix of gore and nudity, as well as arguably being one of the
few films to justify the use of 3D as a film making medium, I was looking
forward to another swarm of killer Piranha, especially with the Water Park
setting being something I hadn’t seen done before, with the original plot line teased at the end of the last film which hinted at giant piranha now having been scrapped, possibly thanks to "The Asylum" beating them to the punch with "Mega Piranha", though it doesn't stop it from being as much fun as the original.
Opening with a quick recap of the events of the last film,
including snippets of the spring break massacre, we are soon thrown back into
the craziness as we get to see the always wonderful and Oscar nominated Gary
Busey as one of two farmers poking the body of a dead cow which somehow has
ended up in a lake. It’s during their redneck examination that we see that the
Piranha have very much survived, with their eggs attached to the nearby reeds.
Still thanks to this bumbling twosome causing said cow to explode by lighting
the gas leaking from the cow they manage to unleash a whole new swarm into the
water supply, while perfectly setting the tone for the rest of the film, for
while the previous film might have played it largely straight, this one cares
little for such things and hence aims for sheer randomness instead, with this
opening essentially setting the tone for what is to follow.
This time around the action is based around the water park
“Big Wet” the brainchild of owner Chet (Koechner) and even boasts “Water
Certified Strippers”. Returning home for
the summer his step daughter and co-owner of the park Maddy (Panabaker) is
understandably horrified by this latest idea for saving the park from closure,
while her personal life is non the less chaotic as she runs in with her
policeman ex-boyfriend Kyle (Zylka), aswell as the geeky Barry (Bush) who has
secretly had a crush on her since they went to school together. Needless to say
the last things she really needs is the shoal of hungry Piranha heading towards
the park, yet considering that the first time she realises of their existence
is after randomly encountering them on the jetty she is light speed quick to
leap into action, not that it essentially makes any difference as you can tell
by the trailer, but it’s good to see smart female lead who doesn’t rely on her
handsome love interest to help her save the day, as most of the time she seems
to handle things pretty darn well on her own.
While none of the main characters from “Piranha 3D” have
returned here, we still surprisingly get quite a few of the more popular
supporting characters making a return with Christopher Lloyd once again on
suitably barmy duties as the marine biologist Mr. Goodman, while essentially
clearing up any questions regarding the piranha getting into the water system.
Meanwhile despite seemingly dying in the
first film Ving Rhames returns for another round as Deputy Fallon only now with the added bonus shotgun legs,
something which might have been questionable before, but by this point in the
film you’ll be pretty much willing to except anything the film throws at you,
plus Ving Rhames always seems to be the guy you’d want taking control of the
situation when the shit goes down be it zombies (Dawn of the Dead) or killer
piranha he always seems ready to kick ass at the drop of a hat. Also adding to
the randomness quota we also have David Hasselhoff hamming things up by playing
himself, a role which could easily have gone either way, but here it is played
with the right amount of cheese to make it a fun cameo, even if he essentially
playing his Hoff alter ego, which he seems to have strangely evolved into these
days.
While the gore quota might not be as high as the carnage
unleashed in “Piranha 3D” it is still high enough to make for a satisfying
watch, especially with a great scene involving a decapitated head, much like
the much talked about piranha which finds itself in a rather unique position to
say the least. Still what has increased in the meantime is the humour quota
with Koechner once again bringing his usual shitkicker styled humour, while the
majority of the humour on offer is mainly sex based from Adrian Martinez’s “Big
Dave” humping a pool suction valve to a piranha chomped penis once again making
an appearance. No doubt the humour content will turn off some viewers but you
have to at the same time question what you were really expecting from a movie
called “Piranha 3DD”??
While not better than the previous film, it is a fun watch
and manages to combine crass humour with high gore, while not outstaying its
welcome thanks to its fast paced plotting. Still if you’re a fan of mutant
fish, copious amounts of exposed breasts and a healthy dose of splatter you
will no doubt lap this one up, while for those expecting alittle more meat and
more importantly brains with their horror, your best giving this one a miss.
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