Dear reader, forego this review and ask yourself one question: are you willing to pay $13 to have a digitally rendered, 3D penis spit in your face?
If your answer was not immediately no, and you are still reading this, continue and discover why “Piranha 3D” might just be the greatest 3D film ever made.
“Piranha 3D” is a brilliantly schlocky horror film given to us by 2006’s “The Hills Have Eyes” director Alexandre Aja.
The film centers on a small town initially invaded by hundreds of scantily clad Spring Breakers and then by a school of prehistoric piranha. These two forces collide, leading to what could possibly be one of the most satisfying gore-gasms in cinema history.
“Piranha 3D” perfectly apes the classic “Jaws” with a single line of dialogue. Shortly after finding the first victim, Dep. Fallon, played by Ving Rhames blatantly states in regards to closing the lake to the public, “It’ll be hard it’s a big financial week for own town.”
That is right. Ving Rhames perfectly surmises the first thirty minutes of “Jaws” in a single line. Why? Because we need to hurry up and get to the killing.
In another masterful “Jaws” homage, Richard Dreyfuss plays an echo of his character, Matt Hooper, in “Piranha 3D’s” opening sequence.
But I’ve made it over 200 words into this review and have not written the word “boobs” once—and truly that is an inaccurate assessment of this film.
The piranha of the film seem to have a particular penchant for a person’s more private parts, as they immediately go for any victim’s more delicate external organs. Bikinis are shredded revealing half-eaten breasts, a woman is eaten butt-first through an inner-tube and yes, as mentioned above, a man’s penis is bitten off and spit back, out of the screen, at the audience in 3D.
Oh, and how this film uses 3D. It is utilized in the same manner as the shoddy 80’s horror films of yore used the medium. “Piranha 3D” takes a long, slow look at its viewer and then defiantly raises a middle finger to everything that James Cameron and his three-dimensional disciples stand for.
“You want deeper emersion into the film, how about breasts in 3D,” “Piranha 3D” impatiently asks of you. “You want high art? Here’s a beautifully choreographed underwater ballet composed of digitally rendered 3D vixens who are then ripped to shreds,” it screams in your face.
Besides Dreyfuss and Rhames, in their supporting and unfortunately short-lived roles, the film showcases Elisabeth Shue as the town sheriff, Adam Scott as a geologist who initially investigates the underwater lake the piranha come from and Christopher Lloyd as the eccentric scientist, á la Doc Brown, who informs the authorities of the piranha’s prehistoric lineage.
But back to the true I just really cannot overstate how well “Piranha 3D” manages to accentuate the glorious art of exploitative horror/porn. At one point a woman’s breasts are revealed as a metal cable splits her bikini top—only to then reveal that the cable has bisected her body, which then falls apart into two, asymmetrical pieces.
“Piranha 3D” is my favorite kind of horror movie. It layers kill after desensitizing kill on top of a bare bones plot that is held afloat by senseless nudity and shallow characters—it is a masterpiece.