Reviewed by Melissa Antoinette Garza
I love bad movies. I love films that show their appreciation for bad films when it’s done right. The 2010 remake of Roger Corman’s classic was entertaining and understood its audience completely. I loved it. Club Dredd is another great send-up to these types of movies.
I wanted to see Piranha 3DD in the cinemas. Especially when I found out that the amazingly talented and very humorous Paul Scheer reprised his character. I must say that I would pay a month’s salary to see a NTSF SD SUV film. The show is fantastic and I only wish it was longer. By the way, NTSF returns this Thursday at 12:15 AM EST on Adult Swim.
Getting back to Piranha 3DD, the movie opens with a retelling of what happened in the first movie. The beach is now deserted but the narrator questions where else something like that could happen.
We are then greeted with Clayton (Gary Busey) and Mo (Clu Gulager) who walk over to a dead cow that wandered into the water. The duo start to mess with it and the animal ends up gassing up the joint and through the flatulence piranhas come flying out.
The CGI is awful and the 3D is awful. This could certainly be purposeful. It may have been to invoke some sort of fondness the way in which Birdemic did, but what filmmakers have to know is that movies like Birdemic are so great because the creators actually believed that all the elements worked when putting it together. They weren’t trying to make the amazingly awful film that they ended up doing. Piranha 3DD ends up playing like a parody of a parody or as though someone read the synopsis of the first one on Wikipedia and just added more toilet humor.
So, Chet (David Koechner) is the sleazy stepdad of Maddie (Danielle Panabaker). Maddie owns 49% and Chet owns 51% in a water park bequeathed to them by Maddie’s mother. Chet makes most of it adult themed with naked women running around everywhere. He hired strippers in place of lifeguards.
The piranhas invade the park and Chet refuses to close it down.
Scheer does return as Andrew with a legless Deputy Fallon (Ving Rhames). Fallon tells Andrew to throw him in the baby pool but then quickly changes his mind. When it’s evident the piranhas are there, he instructs Andrew to get his legs which are titanium. He goes back into the water.
The Scheer/Rhames scenes are a few of the only redeemable. Scheer can sell any dialogue. He’s a comedic genius. I’ve spoken of his podcast “How Did This Get Made” which is on www.earwolf.com. It’s brilliant. The regular cast (Jason Mantzoukas, June Diane Raphael, and Paul Scheer) are hilarious in their assessment of major motion pictures that are horrible or difficult/impossible to understand. These are free people and everyone should be watching these. My husband and I listen to them on every road trip and (generally speaking) every Tuesday we are greeted with either a mini-episode or a full episode (depending on which week we’re on).
A few of the best are 88 Minutes, The Smurfs, Birdemic, Old Dogs, Superman III, and Mac & Me. Don’t get me wrong…ALL should be listened to but those are some of the best. Birdemic actually has Weird Al Yankovic as the guest. I love Weird Al….then again who doesn’t? For those who want to see a good movie – opposed to Piranha 3DD- watch UHF! That’s on Netflix.
I hesitate to say that Piranha 3DD is not watchable. There are a few good scenes but it fails at the most important aspect. It doesn’t entertain. The characters and lines that are meant to be funny, fail at that. There’s one scene where this girl throws up. This disgusting guy comes over and jumps in the vomit, purposefully. It’s just pointless. It’s filled with unfunny gross out gags.
Sadly, there’s no excuse. Christopher Lloyd, David Hasselhoff, and Gary Busey all are present. Lloyd especially isn’t phoning it in. He did a great job but the material is so bad.
There are a few cool shots and a few cool scenes but that’s not enough to save this. It’s a movie which attempts to be “so bad it’s good” but just like most movies that attempt to push itself in the cult classic genre, it couldn’t deliver.
Scared Stiff Rating: 3/10 If a Piranha DDD comes out get Alexandre Aja back!
Thanks for the great review of this sub par movie, Melissa! Like you I love a good old fashioned bad movie and I loved the first Piranha movie. Sadly I didn’t like 3DD nearly as much. I watched 3DD when it first hit pay per view a few months ago. I remember ordering it online before I left my office at DISH and that it was ready to watch in 3D by the time I got home to my Hopper DVR. Where B horror movie sequels traditionally amp up everything that made the first film good, 3DD takes a turn and seemingly dials it back a little. There were still lots of blood, boobs (obviously), and gore, but the movie fell flat for some reason. I know number 3 is coming; maybe Aja and Gulager can combine efforts on the third film for something really “camptastic”.
Thanks for the comments! Yeah, bad movies are amazing. You definitely should check out the podcast of “How Did this Get Made?” if you haven’t already… it just peels back all the ridiculousness of bad movies all the while speaking in an appreciative manner. I would put it on par with MST3K/RiffTrax. It’s a different type of jab/humor but nonetheless freaking hilarious!