All 5 Piranha Movies, Ranked Leave a comment

This time, an earthquake’s to blame for unleashing prehistoric (rather than genetically altered) piranhas on Lake Victoria, a resort area that’s overstuffed with squealing spring breakers, including a cheesy Girls Gone Wild-esque film crew. Oodles of CG-enhanced carnage ensues, of course. Alexandre Aja (who also made the surprisingly good remake of The Hills Have Eyes, as well as cult French horror movie High Tension), knows exactly what kind of movie he’s making here, which means plenty of gross-out scares but also the sort of humor that comes with a story that isn’t taking itself too seriously (and a fair amount of sexism, but that comes with the territory). Elisabeth Shue plays the heroic local sheriff tasked with keeping the body count as low as possible, with a strong ensemble cast (including Ving Rhames, Adam Scott, Jerry O’Connell, Christopher Lloyd, Eli Roth, and Richard Dreyfuss—the latter in a cameo that sends up his Jaws character) backing her up. Also, if you’re equipped for 3D viewing, you can’t really beat the sight of vicious, toothy fish trying to gnaw their way off the screen. Oh, and a piranha literally eats a dick in this one, but it’s still not as repulsively memorable as what happens in Piranha 3DD, as mentioned above.