Taglines: Twice the teeth. Twice the terror.
Lake Victory is a dead place after the tragic events with the invasion of prehistoric flesh-eaters piranhas. In Cross Lake, Merkin County, the greedy Chet opens The Big Wet Water Park against will of his stepdaughter Maddy. When the van of her friends Travis and Ashley is found in the water and the couple is missing, Maddy and her friend Shelby miss them and they talk on a wooden deck on the lake.
Out of the blue, they are attacked by piranhas. Maddy visits the specialist in piranhas Mr. Carl Goodman with her former school friend Barry, who works at The Big Wet, and with her former boyfriend, Deputy Kyle, and they discover piranhas in the lake. However Chet refuses to shutdown his water park and soon his costumers are under the attack of the fearful piranhas.
Piranha 3DD is a 2012 American 3D horror film. A sequel to the 2010 film Piranha 3D, it is part of the Piranha film series and was directed by John Gulager from a screenplay by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton. Production began on April 27, 2011 with a release scheduled for November 23, 2011, but a month prior to release, the date was revised, and the film was eventually released in the United Kingdom on May 11, 2012, and the United States on June 1, 2012.
Film Review for Piranha 3DD
The “sleazy sequel” stars Danielle Panabaker, David Koechner and David Hasselhoff, who cheerfully continues to spoof his own likeness. Although a sequel to 2010’s Piranha 3D seems entirely superfluous, don’t tell that to the target demo of gorehounds and softcore-deprived teens (if they still exist) who may still take some notice. Regardless, this sub-par franchise installment will quickly sink beneath the waves to find a suitable resting place in ancillary, where it will surely tempt younger viewers to outwit the R-rated restrictions.
After a brief newsreel recap of the bloody events depicted in Piranha 3D, the follow-up introduces marine biology graduate student Maddy (Danielle Panabaker), returning home for the summer to find her skeezy step-dad Chet (David Koechner) reopening the formerly wholesome water park run by her deceased mother. Now known as “Big Wet,” it’s a destination better suited to grownups that’s staffed with buxom lifeguards and former strippers.
Complete with an “Adults Only” swimming pool full of mostly naked women, Chet’s relying on the overt sleaze factor and the piranha massacre at now-defunct Lake Victoria, site of Piranha 3D, to drive summer business into his park. He’s not leaving anything to chance however, hiring washed-up lifeguard celebrity David Hasselhoff (cheerfully spoofing himself) to open the park, sign autographs and pose for photos.
The reappearance of the killer fish in picturesque Cross Lake — appropriately located near “Merkin,” Arizona — sends Maddy in search of reclusive scientist Carl Goodman (Christopher Lloyd), with her hunky ex-boyfriend Kyle (Chris Zylka) and totally crushed-out coworker Barry (Matt Bush) in tow. The kindly, if clearly depraved, researcher hypothesizes that the prehistoric fish may be migrating from deep in a network of underwater lakes and rivers to emerge in the vicinity of the water park.
That tipoff is enough to send Maddy on an investigation that uncovers Chet’s scheme to avoid paying utility fees by extracting water from a subterranean aquifer, along with a whole hoard of hungry fish. By now, it’s too late to stop the piranhas from invading the water park to wreak predictable havoc, despite the heroic interventions of Maddy, Henry and even Hasselhoff.
There was a time – back in the prehistory of the latter 20th Century – when this type of Roger Corman-inspired, R-rated Z-movie served as a rite of passage for testosterone-toxified teens, before moving on to the greener pastures of university campuses and frat houses. With today’s prevalence of online porn, amateur strippers and celebrity sex tapes, the target market is constantly shrinking, although the adequately handled 3D format, killer CGI fish and gore effects are still nominal selling points, however familiar by now.
As sequels go, Piranha 3DD has barely enough heft to squeeze out 83 minutes of ho-hum entertainment, although it faithfully delivers plenty of menacing fish and bouncing boobs, as amply advertised. Following up the Feast horror series, director John Gulager plays it mostly by the numbers and with an established template to work with, surprises aren’t anticipated anyway, although tipping the follow-up is obviously required.
With most of the running time devoted to setting up and over-explaining the premise, mayhem gets short shrift. Performances are perfunctory overall, with even the slightly inspired cameos by Lloyd and Ving Rhames — returning as a local sheriff equipped with shotguns on his prosthetic legs — barely raising the temperature above tepid, although Hasselhoff seems eerily inspired in his willingness to ridicule his own image. Clearly these ravenous fish have nothing on battleships, men in black and sword-wielding princesses, but for the devoted, there are obviously no substitutes.
Piranha 3DD (2012)
Directed by: John Gulager
Starring: Danielle Panabaker, Matt Bush, David Koechner, Chris Zylka, Katrina Bowden, Gary Busey, Christopher Lloyd, David Hasselhoff, Adrian Martinez, Meagan Tandy, Sierra Fisk
Screenplay by: Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan
Production Design by: Ermanno Di Febo-Orsini
Cinematography by: Alex Lehmann
Film Editing by: Martin Bernfeld, Devin C. Lussier, Kirk M. Morri
Costume Design by: Carol Cutshall
Set Decoration by: Thurston Edwards
Music by: Elia Cmiral
MPAA Rating: R for sequences of strong bloody horror violence and gore, graphic nudity, sexual content, language and some drug use.
Distributed by: Dimension Films
Release Date: May 11, 2012 (United Kingdom, June 1, 2012 (United States)
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