Every year the population of sleepy Lake Victoria explodes from 5,000 to 50,000 for Spring Break, a riot of sun and drunken fun. But this year, there's something more to worry about than hangovers and complaints from local old timers; A new type of terror is about to be cut loose on Lake Victoria. After a sudden underwater tremor sets free scores of the prehistoric man-eating fish, an unlikely group of strangers must band together to stop themselves from becoming fish food for the area's new razor-toothed residents.

Piranha 3D reminded me a lot of those cheesy 70’s and 80’s horror films that were made just to show a lot of blood and skin and just have fun doing it. I mean the movie is a remake of a 70’s film that was just a B movie ripoff of Jaws that personified the skin and blood horror genre and the remake fills those shoes very well. Piranha is just a fun cheesy film that you can’t take too seriously and that you just have to enjoy it for the ride that it is as you know almost everyone but the lead characters are going to croak in some ghastly way and that there will be plenty of nudity on the way. So if you take the movie for what it is and try and not make some masterpiece out of it you will actually find yourself very entertained by it and enjoy the ride.

That is not to say the movie doesn’t go overboard at times with the cheesiness as there is actually one point in the film where there is an underwater 3D naked ballet yes you heard me right an underwater 3D naked ballet. There is cheesy and fun and then there is overdoing it sometimes Piranha didn’t seem to know the difference. It could get so bad at times that you would just have to grimace at the screen and go oh well. But in the end the film was entertaining and just a riot as it was more humorous than horrifying.

I wish I didn’t have to mention 3D so much when writing movies but it seems to be the complete trend and fad in movies right now. And for a film like Piranha that relies on it so much to sell the film I am almost obligated to mention it. I have said that horror movies are probably still the best genre for 3D and I am still sticking to that. In a horror movie 3D objects can come flying at you and it doesn’t feel gimmicky like them trying to find someway to use a yoyo in the film. And despite the underwater naked ballet they pull it off pretty well. It was still not as good as say Avatar as most of it was done afterword but it wasn’t as bad as some of the 3D I have seen and actually seemed to fit the movie fairly well.

Steven R. McQueen the lead character in the film kind of reminded me of a young Tom Welling as he had that same rugged look and somewhat innocent demeanor. He also reminded me a lot of the characters from the skin and blood horror films of yesteryear too as the a-typical virgin just trying to score and finding himself in a horrific setting. It was a nice addition to the film and gave it a great feel to the movie as it fit very well in the genre of films from that time. Piranha is a cheesy remake that is just there to entertain and that is what it did.

Grade: B-