"Piranha 3DD" review

Piranha 3DD (2012)

Director: John Gulager
Writers: Patrick Melton Marcus Dunstan

Danielle Panabaker ... Maddy
Matt Bush ... Barry
David Koechner ... Chet
Jean-Luc Bilodeau ... Josh
Chris Zylka ... Kyle
Katrina Bowden ... Shelby
Adrian Martinez ... Big Dave
Paul James Jordan ... Travis
Meagan Tandy ... Ashley
David Hasselhoff ... Himself
Christopher Lloyd ... Carl Goodman

The piranhas are back and they’re silly. A waterpark is being constructed for the sole purpose of letting killer fish swim down the water slide. The usual group of B-movie characters fumble around waiting for their chance to die. The fish do their best to eat as much human flesh before people figure out whether they should throw chlorine in the pool. But it’s near impossible to stop a prehistoric fish when he’s hungry. It’s almost as hard as stopping a B-movie producer when he sees a chance to make a quick buck off of suckers who like Piranha movies.

“Piranha 3-DD” filled me with hope when I saw the movie poster. I believed this was going to be a worthy sequel. The first piranha movie truly earned the horror movie praise, “Orgy of gore”. It was a fun movie filled with porn stars, blood and an Oscar worthy performance from Jerry O’Connell. Unfortunately, “Piranha 3-DD” did not apply any of the lessons learned from the first movie. Instead we are treated to a cut-rate piranha movie that should have gone straight to video. I didn’t think a piranha movie could sink any lower. I was wrong.

The filmmakers should be ashamed and embarrassed that they can’t even make a reasonable sequel to a piranha flick. Fish, boobs, blood. What is so hard to understand about this? Well, let me help you understand what went wrong. You see, in any monster movie that involves aquatic creatures, you have to find a reason to get the victims in the water. In the first movie, we have porn stars swimming naked in a lake full of killer fish. Brilliant. In this movie, we have dopes going down the water slide that get rubber fish thrown at them. Not as brilliant. Actually boneheaded. A waterpark? Seriously? Cheap, lazy and stupid. That pretty much accurately describes this movie.

But then again, is “Piranha 3-DD” any different from the hundreds of B-movies I’ve seen? Not really. As a sequel to a mainstream horror movie, it’s a piece of junk. But as a run of the mill B-flick, it’s pretty standard stuff. There are random shots of naked women running around the pool, a worthless Gary Busey cameo, and scenes of splashing and blood that inevitably happen when a school of CGI fish swarms your pool. I wanted a little more quality out of this sequel but I didn’t get it. I was so sure this movie poster wouldn’t lie to me. Oh well. There’s always “Piranha 3-DDD”. Triple the dollars. Triple the deception. Can’t wait.

SCORE: 2 out of 4 piranhas on vacation

Run away!