Piranha 3D (2010)

Elevator Pitch: During a spring break event on Lake Victoria, Arizona, where thousands of students collect for fun wearing swimwear, there is a seismic event on the lake floor releasing shoals of prehistoric piranha. The sheriff’s son is out on the lake, showing a pornographer where to shoot a couple of naked young women under water from a glass bottomed boat, neglecting his younger brother and sister who have sneaked out and are now marooned on a small island. The sheriff and her deputy attempt to clear the revellers out of the water but to no avail, and soon the water is running red.

Content: There is a lot of female nudity, Kelly Brook winning the Best T&A of the Year on the Golden Schmoes. There is also a shot of a male penis, but it is not attached to a male. So the glass bottomed boat scenes are soft porn, but other than that the many shots of nudity usually precede dismemberment, particularly the girl parasailing – you can imagine how it went. Once we get to the shoreline where the revellers are enjoying themselves there is complete mayhem, and there is some tension when the sheriff’s younger children are being rescued from the island on which they have marooned themselves.

A View: This film was not previewed at Comic-Con, considered to be too gory and was not shown to the critics, usually a sign of impending disaster, but this time they liked it, and it made money. I am a former mariner so some of the bits on boats did not work well for me, but one could hardly complain about that in a film about prehistoric piranha. There is probably a lot more gratuitous nudity than in any previous editions of the franchise, but it has been considered to have been enthusiastically presented making it all pretty good fun, but not a movie to watch with your granny.

Additional Info: There was a follow-up Piranha 3DD, which was not a hit. Perhaps the general public were suffering from piranha fatigue.