Piranha 3D probably shouldn't have been the hit it turned out to be a couple of years ago. The film is gory, boobalicious, features an embarrassing script, and B-grade stars who couldn't draw money at an ATM. What it did have was a complete awareness of exactly what it was, and some expert technical direction from Alexandre Aja. The "stars" also knew exactly what they were in for, and hammed it up to a ludicrous degre. It was a movie about man-eating piranha, so why pretend it's friggin' Shakespeare?
Fast forward two years later and Aja has been replaced by the barely functional John Gulager. He might be familiar to those who saw the final season of Project Greenlight, bumbling his way through the first leg of his schlock horror trilogy, Feast. Gulager's sloppy direction worked for a cheap, splattery mess like Feast, but Piranha 3DD finds him surprisingly restrained and shock free.
Piranha 3DD springboards off the events of the last film, where a horde of feral fish turned Lake Victoria, AZ into a human buffet of blood and bones. The once thriving vacation spot is now desolate, and the piranha have moved on to find another hunting spot. Fortunately, there's the Big Wet Water Park opening in just a few days, and run by a complete scumbag named Chet(David Koechner), who doesn't seem all that concerned about the well-being of his patrons. He's more interested in sex and dollar bills, and since sex sells, business will be boomin'. The lifeguards...excuse me..."water certified strippers", are more concerned with getting a tan than saving anybody's life.Chet's goody two-shoes stepdaughter, Maddy(Danielle Panabaker), comes home to find the park she used to love turned into a watery brothel, but rather than doing anything about it, she gets wrapped up in a weak love triangle between her hunky ex(Chris Zylka), and her longtime best buddy(Matt Bush) who naturally is sporting a serious crush on her. The previous Piranha began with an inspired Jaws bit involving Richard Dreyfuss, but this film gets off on a flat note with Gary Busey and never really recovers. At only about 80 minutes in length, about 70 of those minutes feel like a place holder for the big finale we all know is coming. When it does, it's a colossal disappointment, lacking the horrific, crimson spectacle of the last film.
Esquire Magazine's "Sexiest Woman Alive", Katrina Bowden, pops up as a virgin(yeah right!!) who is ready to give it all away, but finds razor-fanged roadblocks getting in the way of her getting off. Her character is a shining example of a lot of the film's problems. You'd expect a movie with the Russ Meyer-inspired title of Piranha 3DD to be a relentless romp of sex gags and nudity galore, but it's incredibly tame. There are silicon puppies aplenty, definitely, but you could find the same thing at 8pm on Cinemax. Shamelessly cribbing from the previous film's most shocking moments, Piranha 3DD comes off as a desperate grab for recognition. "Look, we have fish devouring genitals, too"!
Christopher Lloyd and David Hasselhoff provide the only moments worth remembering. Lloyd is back in his eccentric Doc Brown routine to spout more nonsensical portents of doom, but at least he appears to be having fun with it. Hasselhoff gets to poke fun at his inexplicable Baywatch fame, and steals the spotlight in the process. They're the only two who seem to be in on the gag, that this is a terrible movie and everybody in it is terrible by association. So just have a good time.
Piranha 3DD simply isn't raunchy enough, stupid enough, or disgusting enough to work as even a guilty pleasure. They say that a dead fish stinks from the head down, and Piranha 3DD proves that to be true.
