Piranha 3D Movie Review

Screened at Apollo Cinemas Redditch

Released by Dimension Films

Official Website

It’s Spring Break in the town of Lake Victoria and every sun-tanned, busty beach babe is decked out in a bikini while every drunken jock over indulges in beer and leers at them. The beautiful people of the small town aren’t the only ones enjoying a break; an earth tremor has opened up a chasm that leads to a subterranean lake beneath Victoria,  and a shoal of two million year old piranha have been released from the depths. Carnivorous fish and a lake full of thrashing party animals? It’s chow time.

It’s been some time since I’ve seen a film that exists for one reason and one reason only; to provide maximum entertainment for its target audience. It is simple, gory fun that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a 50’s drive-in double-bill. Sure, the titular fish are CGI and the movie makes use of modern 3D techniques but this is nothing more than a genuine, crowd-pleasing 90 minutes.

The credits for Piranha see Alexandre Aja taking the directorial reins, having previously delivered The Hills Have Eyes remake and Haute Tension (aka Switchblade Romance/High Tension) . Good to see that Aja can turn his hand to something tongue-in-cheek after the intensity of his earlier work.

While a good portion of the effects and underwater sequences are delivered by the aforementioned CGI, the formidable duo of Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger tackle the physical ones.  A scene in the middle of the movie, where dozens of revelers are attacked in the water, provides the opportunity for the pair to shine. And boy do they shine. There’s more gore and carnage in this short sequence alone than you’d get in some entire films. Flesh is ripped, bodies disemboweled, limbs removed and the water churned to bloody foam as person after person is dragged from the melee, screaming and bleeding.

The “talent” comes in the form of the UK’s Kelly Brook, former squeeze of Jason Statham, and adult film star  Riley Steele as a pair of glamour girls being shot on location for porn baron Derrick (Jerry O’Connel). Enlisting the help of local shyboy, Jake (Steven R. McQueen), as their guide, the group becomes the unlikely key characters for the film. There’s a bit of a side-story going on with a girl that Jake has a crush on, but this pales into insignificance when there’s Kelly Brook and Riley Steel doing naked underwater acrobatics.

Any horror fan that’s looking for the kind of gratuitous nudity and gore that last enjoyed a resurgence in the late ‘80s could do a lot worse than to check this out. No brain entertainment that delivers exactly what you expect.

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HorrorTalk.com would like to express its gratitude to Apollo Cinemas Redditch for their kind assistance in making this review possible. Apollo theatres feature the latest Sony 4K Digital technology for the ultimate cinema experience.

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