August is often my favourite month for summer movies, as its titles—like Piranha 3D exemplifies—usually burst the bubble of three months worth of blockbuster pomposity. Piranha appropriates a hallmark of recent box office muscle—3D—and uses it to subvert the wow-factor of the experience by cramming as many unsavoury images as it can into your face. Director Alexandre Aja picks the best ingredients for his concoction; the boobs come courtesy of Playboy model Kelly Brook and adult film actress Riley Steele; old pros, Richard Dreyfus and Christopher Lloyd, lend credibility and tip their hats to previous roles; and, yes, there is blood. The film is pure splatter-pic, but it reaches for the top of that heap.
This article appears in Aug 26 – Sep 1, 2010.