Review of Piranha 3D (2010) by John D — 08 Sep 2015

Intense, scary and packed with loads of blood and gore to the max Piranha 3D is one of the most impressive and the best films ever made, this is also Alexandre Aja's best film since Haute Tension and The Hills Have Eyes(remake) and it is way better than his awful Mirrors remake plus it is even better than the original Joe Dante classic of the same name(without the 3D in the title since back in the early years technology wasn't as advanced as today).

The story of this movie is about a small town called Lake Victoria where people are celebrating the start of summer and Spring break where people are partying, drinking and swimming in the lake. But soon when a part of the lake suddenly cracks open and a pack of blood thirsty Piranhas(which were banished two million years ago in the stone age) are unleashed and are hungry and thirsty for flesh and blood, Spring Break in Lake Victoria soon turns into a disturbing nightmare as the party goers are being eaten alive by the blood thirsty Piranhas and soon Deputy Julie Forster must find a way to get rid of the Piranhas as people are getting eaten alive.

I seriously love this movie. The third time I get to watch this I still enjoyed it and thanks also to my friend Lester Absulio from MCBS when he told me about this film when he watched it in IMAX 3D. I finally got the chance to watch this film at least on DVD and I loved it a lot.

Its kind of a bummer that I never had a chance to watch this in the Cinemas but since I got it on DVD I'm happy and satisfied that I finally had my chance to watch this film and the idea and execution is so outstanding it didn't make the movie look boring or dull.

One of the things I like about this film is that the movie is seriously well paced from start to finish. The film starts with a calm opening scene that quickly turns into a super gory blood bath until in the next half the film goes to pure terror mode that is both terrifying and disturbing as well.

What I also like about Piranha 3D is that the movie has something pretty cool. And that is this is not just a standard Horror movie filled with loads and loads of suspense and non stop bloody violence but the movie seriously acts as a homage to Steven Spielberg's Jaws.

Since Jaws is packed with suspense and loads of tension. Piranha 3D on the other hand is full of non stop blood and gore combined with an electrifying suspense and tension at the same time. The movie is also packed with loads of outstanding scenes that are intense and scary at the same time(The opening scene with the great Richard Dreyfuss getting killed by the Piranhas, the suspenceful underwater sequence and the intense finale) plus the settings are amazing because you get to see lots of incredible locations and the beach setting itself is amazing and beautiful at the same time.

The other things I like about this film is the use of CGI in the Piranhas. Seriously the CGI looks amazing and it made the Piranhas look a bit more realistic looking and the Piranhas are scary as in super scary and you get to see the look of their eyes a lot and their eyes are so creepy looking and I love that since this is a 3D movie you get to see the Piranhas looking straight at the audiences its like the audiences are looking at the Piranhas and you would get to see them try to chomp towards the screen while wearing 3D glasses.

I also love the pump dance soundtrack and it fits well in the Spring Break scene since people are partying first before getting eaten alive and killed by the Piranhas. What else oh yes theres more. I also love the editing by Baxter and of course the ace 3D cinematography of John R.

Leonetti(Insidious 1 and 2) and you get to see the beautiful views of Lake Victoria including the beautiful underwater shots and lots of gorgeous locations of the beach including some of the islands in the film thanks to the smart, outstanding and well achieved camera work from Mr.

Leonetti himself the movie has a top notch quality and look combined with an amazing 3D look. But the true highlight of this film is the gore. This is a real gorefest. Piranha 3D has the gore going to the max and from what I can tell the gore is way pass 100% in this film.

You get to see loads of super violent and extremely bloody and disgusting scenes(Check out the scene where Richard Dreyfuss gets eaten alive by the Piranhas it was sick as hell along with the intense underwater kill scene where two Scuba divers gets eaten alive by Piranhas and the super bloody Spring Break massacre) I would say that the Spring Break massacre was the best scene in the film because that scene is where the gore goes to a top notch and super bloody direction and the gore is over the top and the death scenes are sick, extremely gruesome to the max and intense as well(lots of close ups of the Piranhas eating chunks of flesh from a lot of people including scenes where we get to see the Piranhas sink their teeth in the flesh as they eat the bones and chew chunks of peoples' skins and ripping them off with the blood getting scattered in the lake that attracts more Piranhas, lots of extreme close ups of a lot of peoples faces half eaten with their eyes sticking out of the skull, the scene where a girl gets cut in half by a wire was sick and super disgusting to the max and of course the brutal and super violent scene where a lady's hair gets stuck in a speed boat's propeller and when the propeller starts the top of her head gets ripped off in the most horrifying and brutal way) and it was so lucky that the MPAA did not have the editor cut too many of those scenes and this film is lucky not to be heavily trimmed and edited too much and if this movie was heavily edited then a lot of Horror fans are gonna be really upset and pissed at the same time for the heavy editing of the gory and bloody scenes just like when the MPAA had several of the Friday The 13th films heavily edited luckily that didn't happen today with this film and I'm proud of that.

Now the acting is great, we get to see a lot of outstanding performances from a few fresh faces(I'm talking about you Steven R. McQueen and Jessica Szhor) and an ensemble casts like Elizabeth Shue as the Sheriff of Lake Victoria along with Ving Rhames as the deputy.

You also get to see Jerry O' Connell in his impressive performance to date. You also get to see model and actress Kelly Brook. Along with Saw I-III actress Dina Meyer as one of the scuba divers who get eaten alive and of course a nice small cameo from Jaws actor Richard Dreyfuss as the fisherman who gets eaten alive at the beginning of the film.

But out of all the casts Christopher Lloyd was my favorite out of all the casts and he delivers an Emmett "Doc" Brown like performance only a bit more over the top than role as that character from the Back To The Future trilogy and he was a bit fun in his role as the Marine Biologist with an Emmet "Doc" Brown like personality.

Plus I love Hostel director Eli Roth's cameo in this film as the Wet T-Shirt contestant and he was funny and comical in his portrayal in that role(I love his priceless face in the scene before the boat rips his head off which is also one of the best scenes in the film) and of course I love seeing special make up effects artist Greg Nicotero(who is a collaborator of Alexandre Aja in several of his movies including the effects for other Horror films like Creepshow 2 etc.

...) appear in this film as one of the survivors helping the other person even though the person he's carrying is dead. Director Alexandre Aja seriously has outdone himself. He really did something even better after his previous movie Mirrors was a commercial failure.

While I did enjoy his work on this movie I still think his The Hills Have Eyes remake will always be the best movie he made this one is third while Haute Tension is second place. Alexandre Aja seriously turned the screenplay of Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg into an insane and non stop blood bath filled with loads of over the top violence and gore combined with suspense and tension and filled with a few humor scenes to lighten the mood of the audiences before seeing the carnage and bloodbath on screen and he really knows how to balance suspense and gore in a movie plus he created an amazing and outstanding film that will please gorehounds, Horror freaks and critics as well.

Overall Piranha 3D is an incredible gorefest filled with lots and lots of non stop violence and suspense combined with over the top gore that is way past 100% or 1000%. This movie gets a pure 10/10. Alexandre Aja you are a genius a pure genius.