Piranha (2010)
Cast: Elizabeth Shue, Ving Rhames, Steven R. McQueen, Jerry O’Connell
Director: Alexandre Aja
Nutshell:  A quake releases an entire posse of hungry, cannibalistic, prehistoric piranhas

 

The original Piranha was an enjoyable enough effort but always struck me as rather tame. It should have been so much more.

This gloriously unhinged remake remedies that problem in spectacular fashion.

Alexandre Aja turns everything up to eleven, delivering ninety minutes of monstrous mayhem packed with gallons of blood, fabulous gratuitous gore and a refreshing refusal to take itself remotely seriously. It is exactly the right attitude for a summer popcorn creature feature with absolutely no pretensions whatsoever.

It probably goes without saying...

there is also an abundance of exceedingly attractive flesh on display.

The film kicks off with a delightful cameo from Richard Dreyfuss who, having survived Jaws, finds himself facing a piscine nightmare even Chief Brody could never have imagined. Needless to say, his luck finally runs out as he rapidly becomes fish food, setting the tone perfectly for everything that follows.

A picturesque lakeside town is preparing for its annual Spring Break celebrations. Thousands of hormone-fuelled students descend upon the waterfront, where Eli Roth presides over a gloriously tasteless wet T-shirt competition as the festivities explode into full swing.

Unfortunately for the revellers...

they have chosen exactly the wrong weekend.

Deep beneath the lake, an underground cavern has imprisoned a prehistoric species of piranha for two million years. Forced to survive through cannibalism, these razor-toothed predators are now very, very hungry. A violent underwater tremor tears open the cavern and unleashes literally millions of ravenous fish into the lake.

Spring Break is about to become one enormous buffet.

The local sheriff already has enough on her hands trying to keep track of her rebellious teenage son and his own questionable plans. Coping with a prehistoric feeding frenzy involving millions of flesh-eating fish proves somewhat beyond the resources of the local police department.

What follows is absolute carnage.

The piranhas descend upon the packed waterfront with astonishing ferocity, shredding flesh, severing limbs and transforming the lake into a floating graveyard of blood and body parts. Arms, legs, torsos and assorted anatomical fragments bob through the crimson water as panic engulfs the revellers. The wounded stagger desperately towards safety, many missing sizeable portions of their anatomy, while the fish continue slicing and dicing anything unfortunate enough to cross their path.

It is spectacularly gruesome.

And spectacularly funny.

Aja strikes precisely the right balance between horror and black comedy. The gore is graphic, outrageous and frequently stomach-churning, yet so extravagantly over the top that it never becomes genuinely unpleasant. Instead, audiences are left alternately gasping and laughing as the increasingly ridiculous visual set-pieces pile one upon another.

Even the piranhas get in on the joke at one point, thoughtfully regurgitating a particularly memorable body part.

The visual gags arrive thick and fast, the pacing scarcely lets up for a moment and, wisely, the film checks in at under ninety minutes. Creature features rarely benefit from excessive running times, and Piranha 3D understands exactly when to get in, deliver the goods and get out again.

The performances are exactly what they need to be, the mayhem is both thrilling and revolting in equal measure, and Alexandre Aja once again demonstrates why he remains one of modern horror's most entertaining directors. Haute Tension announced his arrival, The Hills Have Eyes remake confirmed his talent, and here he delivers another wonderfully outrageous slice of cinematic excess.

No, the film isn't going to win any Oscars.

Nor was it ever trying to.

Its sole ambition is to entertain an audience with ninety minutes of gloriously lowbrow monster-movie madness, and in that respect it succeeds magnificently.

The CGI is convincing, the make-up effects are gleefully disgusting and the humour consistently lands. Only the most determined sourpuss could fail to appreciate a production that achieves exactly what it sets out to do.

Good.

Silly.

Light-hearted.

Ridiculous.

Frequently disgusting.

And enormous fun.

A job very well done.