Film Review: "Piranha 3DD"

With the Halloween Horror Movie Madness on Facebook just around the corner, they are currently having the "Creatures from the Deep" week over there. It got me thinking to what film I should review. I gave it thought, until was looking through my blu-ray horror collection and realized that I came across a film that fits the theme and I've reviewed it in the past for Film-Arcade.net. It was decided that I would share my review of "Piranha 3DD".

It's interesting to note that the film is directed by John Gulager (Feast) and stars Danielle Panabaker (The Flash, Friday the 13th (2009)), David Koechner (Anchorman, Cheap Thills) and features appearances from Ving Rhames (Mission Impossible: Rouge Nation, Pulp Fiction), Gary Busey (Silver Bullet, Lethal Weapon), David Hasselholf (Baywatch,  Alleluia! The Devil's Carnival 2) and Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit).

The Piranhas are back and they’re head upstream from Lake Victoria to a swimming park known as “The Big Wet”. The staff and the patrons have no idea what coming their way. Can they survive the onslaught of piranhas or end up as there next meal.

Sometimes when I’m watching a film, there are some things that I like to rip apart to and there are some things where you actually enjoyed watching all the badness. “Piranha 3DD” is one of those films, where you think that this should be a negative review, but I couldn't help that I had fun with it.

John Gulager does a good job for what he had to work from. He sets out to makes the watching experience a fun time. From the way the set up his scenes to the major bloodbath in the third act, he does a very good job making the scenes feel fun to the viewer and tries to make you forget some of the rushed sequences. The acting was passable, as this wasn’t surprisingly annoying. Gulager does a very good job making the acting not feel too over the top that it turns you off. It especially helped with Hasselhoff’s performance, as I actually enjoy him a lot in a comedic way. He was the best part of this film.

The screenplay written by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton was flat out awful for the first two acts before having it somewhat saved in the third act. One of the things that I didn’t like about it was the fact the scenes felt like they were rushed. There wasn’t any character development and no setup to the death scenes with made the film feel like a fast viewing experience. It could have made the film even more fun, if they were set up properly. There is no excuse to have scenes rushed, when the film has 71 minutes of material and 12 minutes of padding. It really aggravates me when that happens. It tells me that the screenwriting process was either rushed or the writers didn’t care about it.

The only thing that saves this and turns it into a guilty pleasure was the third act. I liked how they handles Hasselhoff’s role here. He’s given material that makes his presence feel comedic instead of just waiting to see if a piranha would bite him to death. That and the third act bloodbath are the only good things about this screenplay.

If you want to see a mindless film, then this is your film. If you’re expecting a good follow up to “Piranha”, you’ll be very disappointed. “Piranha 3DD” is one of those films, where you clearly classify as guilty pleasure because of a good third act.

Review Rating: Two and a Half Stars