Starring Danielle Panabaker, Matt Bush, David Koechner, Jean-Luc Bilodeau, Chris Zylka, Katrina Bowden, Adrian Martinez, Paul James Jordan, Meagan Tandy, David Hasselhoff, Christopher Lloyd, Paul Scheer, Gary Busey, Clu Gulager
Directed by John Gulager
Expectations: High. I’ve been very excited to see this, hoping for a sequel that recaptures the horror/comedy of the 2010 remake.
On the general scale:
On the B-Movie scale:
Long story short: This movie contains none of the guilty fun of the original. It’s not that Piranha 3DD is pure shit, it’s more that it’s a shameless cash-in, it’s obvious and it squanders an opportunity to deliver another horribly debaucherous, gory good time. I thought the 2010 remake, Piranha 3D, was hopelessly shitty, but it was made with such style and filled with such inventive gore that I couldn’t help but become enamored with it. It seriously had no business being as funny and gore-tastic as it was. So when I heard there was a sequel looming, I instantly become excited and hoped it could live up to its predecessor. Maybe if previous director Alexandre Aja was still around, but this time we get John Gulager, the man who brought the world the Feast trilogy, of which I have seen none (and based on the strength of this one, I won’t be changing that anytime soon).
Piranha 3DD opens with a scene that holds no significance or bearing on the tale that I can remember. It features Gary Busey and his buddy hunting around a lake in the dark of night for their cow. How or why their cow is in the lake we will never know, but when they do find said cow, it’s dead, rather gassy, and it involuntarily shoots a couple of piranha eggs out its ass. Oh, if only I had paid for the 3D! While fish eggs from a dead cow’s ass might whet your cinematic appetite, don’t be fooled! The film actually focuses on a water park recently taken over by a money-hungry dude who hires strippers for lifeguards and designates one of the pools as an “Adult Pool,” complete with condom dispensers poolside and a “Cooch Cam.”