Piranha 3DD

They're Back

Director John Gulager did a great job with Feast, and went on to do two more sequels which had gone direct to video. Roped in to continue where Alejandro Aja had left off with Piranha 3D, we return to Lake Victoria to witness the aftermath of the events from the first film, with suggestion now that the prehistoric man eating fishes have now gone exploring more of its waterways, and finally finding opportunity to chomp on more fresh meat available in The Big Wet, a wet and wild theme park complete with a sectioned off area for adults only. Yes, you saw that coming, didn't you?

Written by Joel Soisson to work on what Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan of various Saw and Feast films had already written, I'm pretty sure the signs on how well this sequel will fare in the story department would be telling from the filmography that Soisson had worked on. Don't expect much to come out of Piranha 3DD other than to rehash the same violent mess of the first film, only this time it seemed that Gulager may have opted for this to be a wee bit friendlier from a gore standpoint, reserving much of the bloody mayhem for the final 20 minutes in what would be too little too late, complete with plenty of cheese in the entire buildup.

The characters here are mostly new, revolving around Maddy (Danielle Panabaker) who had returned to her hometown for the summer holiday to find that her 49% share of her mother's water based theme park had been turned into a strippers on water joint by stepdad Chet (David Koechner), which of course gives rise to many opportunities for gratuitous nudity to grace the screen, from boob and ass shots, to full frontal if deemed necessary, complete with silicone on display. While the first film also had its fair share of such scenes, the ones here are purely exploitative and done for the sake of, even a sex scene (where nothing much happens) provides for a ludicrous development that threatened to be somewhat like Aliens, only played out much differently for a mix of meek laughs, and for a terribly lame one-liner to be uttered.

While the earlier effort had a comical element associated with it, this follow up paled in comparison no thanks to many unbelievable one liners that don't hit their mark, and I wonder how anyone can deliver them with a straight face. That, and plagued with a story that is pretty much non-existent, peppered with more caricatures that are in it to become fodder one way or another, lending to the death count prioritized as dictated by the usual horror film rules. The saving grace came from the supporting cast who returned for yet another outing, such as Ving Rhames and Christopher Lloyd, but the one who stole everyone's thunder when he first came on for the final half hour, is David Hasselhoff, playing a satirical version of his star status, with that Baywatch body now blessed with man boobs, and hamming it up to be so full of himself, it's painfully funny.

It's a pity then for this 3D movie, which being shot in 3D, had plenty of gimmicky designed shots to enhance the in-your-face experience. There's nothing much to the story except to link up scenes for the Piranhas to feed on unsuspecting bodies, usually in different states of undress. Naturally that in itself may be a draw for some sections of the movie going crowd. Stay tuned during the end credits for a lot more extra scenes not seen in the film proper. Strictly for B-movie fans who find delight at man eating fish going on a feeding frenzy, and for fans of David Hasselhoff.