I once saw Richard Dreyfuss speak. He was a cantankerous old man who spoke openly about his industry and pulled no punches. Something I respect in the Hollywood elite. When questioned by an audience member about why he took a gig on Poseidon, the atrocious remake of The Poseidon Adventure. Dreyfuss looked into the audience and with a stone cold face said, “For the money.” He went on to say that it was a bigger pay-day than he’d seen in years and he thought, why the hell not.
This story came to my mind during the opening of Piranha 3D in which a drunk Dreyfuss fishes on the doomed Lake Victoria. He drops a bottle of beer into the water that ultimately sets off a seismic disruption opening a rift underneath the lake that connects the water above with a cavernous lake below. Unfortunately hidden within the cavern below are prehistoric piranhas in search of food. Dreyfuss is their first meal. The opening is comically brutal. The fish swarm around Dreyfuss, picking at bits of flesh until very little remains.
Piranha 3D is the second remake of the 1978 film Piranha. Obviously this time it’s in 3D. I’m not a huge fan of 3D, but I think it is very appropriate for films like this, however, Piranha 3D underutilized the technology. I also saw My Bloody Valentine in 3D last year, and felt the 3D added more to that shitty little remake than it did to Piranha. one scene sticks out where a pick axe is jabbed through a man’s skull and the man’s eyeball remains on the pick and shoots out at the audience. In Piranha the only value of the 3D was seeing 3D breasts. Or rather breast implants, but as we will almost all agree, fake boobs are gross.
The plot beyond the discovery of the piranhas is that Lake Victoria is also a hot Spring Break location. So of course there are thousands of college students, young, sexy, and immoral, for the piranhas to munch on. Unless Elizabeth Shue, the local sheriff, can get everyone out of the water in time. (SPOILER: She can’t.)
There is tons of blood, gore, nudity, and even a floating penis. The movie doesn’t take itself serious, like the films on the SyFy channel. In fact it takes pride in its campy roots and doesn’t try to rise above any other monster flick from the past. For that I give it a lot of credit. I had tons of fun laughing at the movie, and in hindsight perhaps we were laughing together. (Although Christopher Lloyd was definitely underused. Come on, we want more Doc Brown.)
One of the things I hated about Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill films was that they were an homage to shitty wire-fu films of old. Sure it was an entertaining homage but still an homage to shitty movies. Piranha 3D is the same, but instead of an homage they have decided to literally remake the shitty film. Why? There are tons of bad ideas out there that they can camp up, and fill with silicone tits and blood.
Although the film was fun I ultimately have to label it as a waste of time for everyone involved. And I promise to stop using the word homage and will now replace it with too-lazy-to-come-up-with-an-original-idea-and-too-ashamed-to-admit-they-don’t-know-how-to-make-a-movie-that-they’re-going-to-remake-a-movie-and-call-it-an-homage-so-that-people-think-they’re-artsy.
