Piranha (2010)

Directed by: Alexandre Aja | 88 minutes | action, horror, thriller | Actors: Elisabeth Shue, Adam Scott, Christopher Lloyd, Richard Dreyfuss, Eli Roth, Jerry O’Connell, Dina Meyer, Ving Rhames, Steven R. McQueen, Jessica Szohr, Kelly Brook, Riley Steele, Cody Longo, Brooklynn Proulx, Ricardo Chavira , Paul Scheer, Brian Kubach, Eva Lauren, Bria Roberts, Adel Marie Ruiz, Sage Ryan, Jason Spisak, Maarsen Roney, Crystal Sommer

Finally! Old-fashioned pulp horror in a new guise! It’s been a long time since a horror film was so deliciously silly and also had a large budget. ‘Piranha 3D’ mixes the unpretentious frenzy of the 80s with the special effects of today, resulting in a funny and gory B-movie that doesn’t take itself seriously for a second. The great thing is that genre fans are taken seriously and are treated to an (over)dose of blood and nudity.

‘Piranha 3D’ starts off nice and cliché. Due to human error (in this case a fisherman who drops a beer bottle into the water, which then causes a landslide(!)), a school of dangerous fish is released. In a subterranean cave lives a prehistoric piranha colony with a strong appetite. The water devils’ hunger is satisfied by a couple of rowdy youngsters enjoying a water holiday. A local sheriff (Shue) tries to stop the fish. The not to be taken seriously is enhanced by the cast that goes completely over the top. Especially O’Connell goes completely wild as an annoying porn filmmaker. Also Rhames and Lloyd are in shape in funny supporting roles. The fact that the main character is rather colorless and that there are quite a few wise-cracking children participating in this creepy mess doesn’t bother for a moment. It belongs to the genre. The fans want to see blood and nakedness and they get that. Director Aja has cast on silicones and steroids and you can clearly see that in the body count. Idiotic bastards and stupid bimbos are being dismembered, eaten and mutilated. The finale in particular cuts it (literally) well and the corpses are unstoppable.

The cool thing about this B-movie is that Aja knows exactly what he’s doing. After a series of serious slaughter films (recently that was the nice ‘Mirrors’ and before that his brilliant remake of ‘The Hills Have Eyes’) the filmmaker is ready for something more light-hearted and that also translates into violence. ‘Piranha 3D’ is gross and some wounds look realistic, but the majority consists of mealy filth (skin being peeled from a face and a cut through) that cannot be taken seriously. Realism is out of the question.

The 3D effect is also perfectly executed (for a change). Vomit, piranhas and an eaten penis are convincingly shown in three dimensions. The atrocities are shown in detail and are served full of sjeu. If you want to see horror in 3D, it can’t get any better than this (for now). At a time when movies have to be melancholy, cynical and dark, this silicone carnage is a breath of fresh air. The 80s revival has been going on for a while, but the happy, wrong side of that decade is (unfortunately) too little exposed. Retarded pulp horror is rarely seen, but Aja’s tribute with a high camp factor is a welcome change. This is a Pulp movie with a capital P and the cast knows it. The P also stands for Platfood entertainment, Pure fun and Penis of course…