PIRANHA AND THE LEGACY OF THE SEQUELS

So recently, I got the absolute joy (seriously!) of watching PIRANHA 3DD(actually, this was the  title of the 3D release…my version is just DD). Now before you throw me up against the wall and try to convince me that I have lost my mind, hear me out (sorry-it’s my boss’ favorite line). It was a $5.00 DVD purchase and the cover art alone caught my eye, as you can well imagine. Now, I have an absolute warm place in my heart for the original Joe Dante film from 1978 and couldn’t bring myself to watch the remake from 2010(more on that shortly). But this just looked so goofy and…it has ‘The Hoff’ in it. And it was 5 bucks.

So, to get the full feel, I had to go out and get PIRANHA 3D(or the version I know is just called PIRANHA). So here’s the short story on that one. We start with fisherman Matt Boyd, played by Richard Dreyfuss channeling Matt Hooper from JAWS, gets torn apart by a school of piranhas. Sheriff Julie Forester, played by 80’s star Elisabeth Shue, and Deputy Fallon (Ving Rhames chewing copious amounts of scenery) discover the mutilated body and decide they need to close the lake. That’s kind of tough to do because there are two thousand partying college students on spring break here. As you can imagine, stuff hits the fan and fast! It’s a feeding frenzy leaving almost everyone dead or mutilated until a flare igniting a pair of propane tanks does the little beasties in.

This movie is a roller coaster comedy that pulls out a ton of clichés and rolls them into a scary, gory little package. And it is filled with guest appearances galore. That in itself is enough that this should be in your collection. Besides Shue, Dreyfuss and Rhames, you get Jerry O’Connell as a sleazy pornographer, Dina Meyer (Barbara Gordon from BIRDS OF PREY), Paul Scheer, Eli Roth, former porn stars Ashlynn Brooke and Gianna Michaels, and Christopher Lloyd channeling Doc Brown. Just to see Rhames carving up killer fish with an outboard motor propeller being used like a weed whacker is priceless. not to mention the little touches thrown in (Dreyfuss is listening to the song SHOW ME THE WAY TO GO HOME which is also the song he, Robert Shaw and Roy Scheider sing in JAWS). Gratuitous nudity and gore, cool cameos and over the top action and acting make this a loving semi-tribute to the original, which was in itself a parody of Speilberg’s JAWS.

Ving Rhames and the outboard

Which leads me back to that original.

Back in 1978, Roger Corman produced a little B movie called PIRANHA, It was the second feature film for Joe Dante, whose resume since includes such classics as GREMLINS, ROCK AND ROLL HIGH SCHOOL and THE HOWLING. John Sayles, known for THE RETURN OF THE SECAUCUS 7 and CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR, among many other works, wrote the screenplay.

In a nutshell, after a few piranha attacks, we learn that a former fish hatchery had been militarized as part of a Vietnam War project called Operation; Razorteeth. The project was shut down when the war ended but some specimens survived and now we have a rather curious but moronic insurance investigator accidentally releasing the creatures into the wild. More specifically: The Lost River Water Park and summer camp. Of course the man who tended to these specimens manages to die before he can reveal how to kill them. Of course the fish attacks the summer camp, killing many children in the process and then proceed to the water park. In the end, pollution from a smelting tank is used to destroy the fish…although they don’t ALL.

This is a true classic in all ways.  Insane plot, cheesy special effects…actually, that’s not true. The special effects featured some of Rob Bottin’s earliest work. prior to his work on THE THING. And you get a loaded cast of B movie actors: Bradford Dillman, Heather Menzies, Kevin McCarthy, Keenan Wynn, Barbara Steele, Belinda Balaski, frequent Corman participant Paul Bartel, Bruce Gordon and, of course, the ubiquitous Dick Miller. 

Success led to a sequel and in 1981, PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING arrived. It’s most famous piece of trivia involves the director. It was James Cameron’s feature film directorial debut. Yeah…THAT JAMES CAMERON. Let’s see: TERMINATOR, TERMINATOR 2, ALIENS, THE ABYSS, TITANIC, and AVATAR, among others. Oh yeah: he also got fired from the job, but stuck around long enough to assist and, when stricken with food poisoning, dreams the script for TERMINATOR.

There ain’t much to tell about this piece of garbage. It’s set in the Caribbean island, we have a bunch of really cardboard characters, a cast of mostly unknowns(with the exception of  Lance Henriksen and soap star Ricky Paull Goldin) you have never heard of and flying piranhas!

We jump ahead to 1995 where Roger Corman produced a remake for Showtime. As in the original, it features the little creatures making their way to the Lost River Lake Resort. It is notable only that it is filled with more B actors from my past. GREATEST AMERICAN HERO star William Katt, PUNKY BREWSTER’s Soleil Moon Frye, Monte Markham, and Mila Kunis. Thhis thing was so cheaply made that Corman, last of the Big Time Spenders, recycled the special effects from the original. 
 
And that takes us to the movie that led me down this road in the first place: PIRANHA 3DD. This 2012 film is a directly sequel to the 2010 film. It’s directed by John Gulager, who at least at the sense of casting his father Clu Gulager in the film.

The film begins one year after the massacre at Lake Victoria and the once prosperous community is pretty much in tough shape as the tourism market has gone way south.  Two farmers, played by Gary Busey and Clu Gulager, come across a dead cow that has piranha babies inside. Yeah…they’re both gone really quickly. Well this really sleazy guy decides to open an adult water park, much to the dismay of his marine biologist daughter. It doesn’t take long before things start happening. One couple dies after their van ends up in the water and they get served as lunch. Someone else has a piranha swims inside her and it latches itself onto her boyfriend’s penis during sex, leading him to castrate himself. The girl and her non-boyfriend friend go to visit Christopher Lloyd, who has his own piranha that he keeps in captivity. “Big Wet” opens with a secret: it’s pulling water from the underground river where the piranhas live. No matter-it’s a celebration. A legless Ving Rahmes is there escorted by Paul Scheer, who is trying to break the Deputy of his fear of the water. Also on the scene: celebrity Life Guard David Hasselhoff.

The Hoff

Well, it’s not long before the fish make their way into the pool and carnage ensues! It’s up to the biologist and her non-boyfriend/boyfriend to save the day. And then Christopher Lloyd chimes in to say that his piranha has gotten loose and the fish have learned to walk. There’s a final gruesome moment which I won’t spoil and then, in a post credit scene, we see The Hoff running on a beach as an advertisement for a film titled FISHHUNTER.

"GET ME MY LEGS..."

This film so totally rocks! I nearly wet myself during the film’s final 30-45 minutes. You have a cast that includes Busey, Guluger, Lloyd, Hasselhoff, Scheer, semi-Scream Queen Danielle Panabaker, David Koechner, and of course, Ving Rhames, who, along with Hasselhoff, TOTALLY steals this movie. How do you OUTDO Rhames with a boat motor killing fish? You amp it up, give him titanium leg pipes and a very big gun! How do you outdo the gore and nudity of the first one? By having that much more gore and slow motion nude implants! How do you OUTDO the pornographer of the first film? You have David Koechner be as out as sleazy as you can imagine (“Double D’s gets in for FREE!”).

"I HATE Fish!"

This film has it all, while totally maintaining it’s tongue within its’ cheek! We have a piranha latching onto a poor kid’s penis and he cuts it off with a carving knife. If that wasn’t bad enough, his girlfriend goes looking for him, steps on the fish and the penile head squirts out (yeah…that must have been a TREAT in 3D!). We have The Hoff totally living up to his reputation as a ladies man by having not one but TWO girls in his hotel room as he composes the infectious song NIGHTHUNTER. We have a cow farting out fish babies! We have a whole commentary on social media that slides under the radar unless you read between the lines. We have Ving Rhames uttering the classic line: “Bring me my legs!” And David Hasselhoff actually making a rescue! We have one of the characters having to have a piranha pulled out of his butt!

I cannot recommend this movie enough! It is the laugh riot that you have been waiting for. It is so over the top that MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATRE 3000 would have a FIELD DAY if the show was still on! Do yourself the favor: buy it, rent it, RedBox it, Netflix it…whatever you must do!