Culture

Director: James Cameron. Starring: Tricia O’Neil, Steve Marachuk, Lance Henriksen, Ricky Paull Goldin.


 If you’re concerned that you haven’t seen the first installment of the Piranha series, do not worry. You are not in any danger of missing any vital pieces of information.

As the film is about killer ocean dwellers, it is suitable that it begins with a dive into a shipwreck that goes awry and an underwater sex scene. It’s mostly awkward and not very sexy, and ends with the couple being eaten/mauled by unknown creatures/piranhas. Cut to Anne, who runs a dive course at the Hotel Elysium. She’s about to take a group out for a dive in the ocean, but warns - with good reason - them not to go inside the shipwreck (cause that’s where the sexy couple got mauled, remember?). Some idiot does not heed the warning, goes into the death trap and comes out…dead!
 
Thus begins a string of killings. We soon discover that the piranhas can fly when one flies out of the corpse of the aforementioned idiot and goes straight for the jugular of the morgue attendant. The rest of the killings are fairly similar in nature: piranha flies at victim, goes for jugular, flaps and gnaws, then flies away. The gore isn’t too bad, probably on the same level as feeding time on True Blood and, luckily, it’s mostly funny and not very scary at all. Flappy-flap-flap.

You’ll find this movie most enjoyable if you spend it laughing at the acting and making fun of all the silly outfits the people are wearing. Don’t bother looking for any form of plot, or answers to any questions you might have. The underwater scenes are fairly well done and go a long way towards providing a much-needed element of tension towards the end of the film. The highlight has to be the annual fish fry, which sends all the hotel guests onto the beach in search of fish that have beached themselves as part of a mating ritual. Silly people, don’t they know they’re dealing with flying fish? Idiots.