Creep Show Radio Reviews: Piranha 3DD (2012)

I have seen pain. I have seen suffering. I thought I had seen the worst of the worst. I had even seen FEAST 3. But I have never seen anything as bombastically stupid as PIRANHA 3DD. And I, like all of you, lived through TWO Bush administrations.

It’s hard to pinpoint where 3DD goes wrong. Was the bar set too high with PIRANHA 3D? Having low expectations for the 2010 film, it was a nice surprise when the final outcome was the best film out of this franchise. Needless to say, I was ready to chuckle-it-up again watching the sequel, which promised more laughs, blood and guts and, ahem, plastic breasts.

Director John Gulager and screenwriters Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan tried to deliver on all of the above, but only leave the audience with an incoherent hodge-podge of a film that can’t decide what it wants to be.

The “story” starts a year after the events at Lake Victoria, the town and lake dried up from the piranha attacks. Two farmers, (Gary Busey and Clu Gulager in uninspired cameos), happen upon a dead cow which happens to contain unhatched eggs. It is easy to guess what happens, but the film then crashes into the main body of the story where Marine Biology student Maddy, (Danielle Panabaker), returns home to the water park her stepfather Chet, (a sleazy and gross David Koechner), owns. The park is losing money and Chet plans to open an adult-themed section of the park called “The Big Wet.” In between all this Maddy is reunited with old friends and crushes. The roles of her way-too-horny-friends are written with the intention of being the tired cliches, but the screenwriters were not effective in morphing the characters into the realm of parody where this film needed to go.

After some garbage storytelling that includes the re-introduction of Mr. Goodman, (Christopher Lloyd), the film stumbles into the third act, which is what the audience is waiting for. Here comes the blood, the gore, the guts, and the naked women. And trust me, there are ample amounts of all of the above.

The one thing it doesn’t have is any redeeming value, the carnage scenes scattered about with erratic and clumsy editing, and some God-Awful “performances” by actresses who were cast for their bra size rather than talent and IQ. All of this action is kicked off when Goodman warns Maddy and her friends that the piranhna have mutated and are now traveling through the sewer pipes, threatening the grand opening of the “Big Wet.” As with any film that has water, monsters and tourists, the people in charge of course disregard all of these factors and go ahead and open anyway. Let the carnage begin!

I wanted this film to end.

And it doesn’t. After sitting through the dreadful first two acts, I was hoping that the final guts and gore would impress me, but it doesn’t do enough to change the fact PIRANHA 3DD will not only go down as the worst horror film of the year, but also an early contender for worst film of the decade.

And the fault lies with two screenwriters who are always way more miss than hit. Melton and Dunstan, (Responsible for the FEAST trilogy and SAW 5, 6, and 7), once again prove they have zero clue at horror-comedy. While I did highly enjoy the first FEAST, its subsequent sequels were beyond description, 3 being the worst horror film I have ever seen. What worked in the PIRANHA 3D does not work here when turned up to 11, Melton and Dunstan need to learn the quality of restraint.

Is PIRANHA 3D a total loss? Not at all. I can’t in good conscience tell you to watch this film, but it might be worth it for all fans of the ‘Hoff, (David Hasselhoff). His ability over the past few years to show up as a broken-down version of himself is nothing short of inspired, and is easily the best work of what I guess is a “career.”

But this is only a minor distraction from what is a film that should have never been made. Cringe-inducing in all the wrong ways and never entertaining, I am sure this film could be used in certain torture situations.

0 out of 5 stars.