Movies

Torture porn meets softcore porn in Piranha 3D, a throwback to trashy '80s drive-in horror flicks with tongue planted firmly in cheek. Boobs and blood are the order of the day as scores of prehistoric piranha are unleashed on a lake during spring break.

The success of Piranha 3D is a miracle: the film has an 81% rating on the online critic aggregator Rotten Tomatoes — unheard of for this sort of schlock — and when the film made more than $10 million in its opening weekend at the US box office, producers immediately announced a sequel. There's even an internet campaign to get the film nominated for Best Picture at the next Academy Awards (joke or not, it's great attention for a movie with a terrible title).

You get exactly what you pay for with Piranha 3D — it's bottom-of-the-barrel stuff, appealing to the absolute lowest common denominator. Where the movie succeeds, however, is in knowing just how bad it is. It's not serious for a single second, and audiences will be howling with laughter and grossed out by the shockingly graphic gore at the same time.

Look: director Alexandre Aja has already proved himself a great filmmaker. His High Tension and The Hills Have Eyes were top-tier horror films, and now he just wants to let loose and have fun, remaking the 1978 cult film Piranha.

Aja delivers exactly what his blood-thirsty fans want, too: the climactic lake massacre is truly shocking, with hundreds of buff jocks and fake-breasted beauties being torn limb from limb until the water turns crimson. Each death has been meticulously thought out — each one is different.

The 3D is crap, but suits this film perfectly. Everything flies at the screen, from eyeballs to vomit (yes, vomit) and genitals (yes, genitals).

Piranha 3D is full of cameos, too: Richard Dreyfuss from Jaws, Christopher Lloyd from Back to the Future and horror director Eli Roth of Hostel fame. All of them are over the top in a movie that's as entertaining as it is horrible.