HORROR YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED: PIRANHA 3D (2010)

PIRANHA 3D  (2010)

Director Alexandre Aja takes Roger Corman’s classic original and totally “cranks it up to 11” in this deliriously gory and delightfully horny remake. Aja takes Corman’s blood and boobs formula to the extreme and creates a highly entertaining action/ horror that, if it’s your cup of tea, delivers the goods in overdrive. It might be one of the goriest movies I’ve seen in quite some time with an army of spring break co-eds making up a meal for an army of prehistoric Piranha and the bodies and body parts are everywhere.

When an earthquake opens the floor of an Arizona lake and releases the Jurassic fish from their underground lair, it puts a bite on the Spring Break celebration in progress. Now it’s up to Sheriff Forester (Elizabeth Shue) to bite back, but first, she has to rescue her son, Jake (Steven R. McQueen) and his love interest, Kelly (Jessica Szohr) who have taken to the lake to document the wild partying with trashy video producer, Derrick (Jerry O’Connell).

Sure, director Aja has all the exploitation elements present, but what really makes it work is that Aja and the script don’t forget about the story, don’t forget about the lead characters and put together a couple of nail biting suspense scenes amidst the carnage and it’s all done with a devious giddiness. As with the filmmakers who worked for Corman, they never forget to give us a movie underneath all the exploitation. Only real flaw to me was some cheesy CGI. If you like this kind of flick, this is one of the most entertaining exploitation style movies in quite some time. A type of film that sadly doesn’t get made much anymore, at least not with this kind of respect and care. And one final note, forty- something year old Elizabeth Shue is still hot and held her own among all the co-eds. The lady can still rock a pair of blue jeans.

Also stars Adam Scott as a diver helping Sheriff Forester, Ving Rhames as a deputy, Christopher Lloyd as an eccentric scientist and the heavenly body of Kelly Brook as one of Derrick’s models

3 and 1/2 carnivorous critters