Piranha (2010) Dir: Alexandre Aja

French shocker Haute Tension's director Alexandre Aja helms this remake of a movie that was itself a Joe 'Gremlins' Dante directed parody in the first place.
Confused?
You might be.
Lake Victoria, every summer time, plays host to twenty thousand screaming jocks and nymphettes, all determined to enjoy their summer break by taking off most, if not all of their clothes, waving their arses around whilst covered in oil, and pouring as much alcohol down their worthless gullets as possible.
A seismic shift beneath the great lake's surface literally moves the Earth and, beneath the water, a crevasse is formed, linking the lake on the surface with one beneath the rock, that had been sealed for millions of years. Though shut off from the outside world for millenia, life still flourished, and soon finds its way into the warm upper waters and, wouldn't you know it, those voracious prehistoric piranha have a wanton taste for human flesh.
Cue much waterbound screaming and thrashing.
A simple enough premise, ripe for the modern faux B-movie workover.
But, this is a strange beast, and no mistake.
Essentially, viewing Piranha 3D is like watching two really short movies spliced together as one.
Movie 1: Run of the mill monster movie, where fish have really big teeth and eat anything that is foolish enough to swim where they lurk.
Movie 2: One of those God awful Girls Gone Wild soft porno's that gained brief notoriety - here in Blighty at least - when Larry David was determined to get his hands on one in CYE.
It's clever, though, almost post-modern.
See, we are watching a softcore movie being made by a cheap as chips porno director in the movie and, by lucky happenstance, that means we as the viewer get to watch a softcore movie ourselves, or at least snippets of it. Then the scene changes, and we're all gristle and gnashing teeth and flying cartilage. Then back again, to the porn movie. It's fucking bewildering at times, and is rooted squarely between the hateful and the genius and, even now, 24 hours after seeing the movie, I can't decide which way it swings.
As the bikini clad beauties shake their poomtang, as the muscle bound morons flex their pecs, delight in the certain knowledge that they will all meet a grisly end.
As Kelly Brook and her 'pal' cavort underwater, bare as the day they were born in a 'mermaid' scene that simply has to be seen to be believed - I laughed out loud at the preposterousness of the whole thing, whilst slowly 'Little Mosefus' made his presence felt - you'll be shaking your head in confusion.
So that's the nudity dealt with, what about the gore?
As a 3D only movie, I wasn't expecting much, but was pleased to be proved wrong as, on occasion, this is positively barbaric. Sure, there's the odd moment of CGI silliness and, yep, you get the occasional 'point something at the camera and wave it around in Real 3D' scene but, for the most part, the gruel is proper prosthetics, and the movie is all the better for it. As people are dragged onto boats midway through piranha attacks, we see their useless, flesh-stripped limbs flailing behind them. In one glorious moment of madness, a rather unfortunate woman gets her hair caught on the propellor of a powerboat and has the skin of her face ripped right off, a fine feat of special FX that had me giggling like an imbecile.
Whilst it takes a little while to get there, when the payoff comes it is well worth the wait and, as the bloodbath ensues, one couldn't help but be put in mind of the opening sequences of Saving Private Ryan, with body parts flying left and right, corpses adrift in the water, whilst those that survive must do battle with a seemingly invincible foe.
But at least this one had a plausible plotline....
Riotously good fun, the only reason I knock 1 off the rating is because, due to a genetic flaw that will affect few others, I can't see the damned 3D effects.
A modern exploitation flick that delivers the goods.

4 out of 5

Dr. Moreau's House of Pain (2004) Dir: Charles Band

You know, I had a dream a while back in which I opined the paucity of
movies featuring bare breasts and half human, half pig hybrids. "Why oh
why oh why," I cried, "Can we not see more breasts and pig men?" Well,
fear not my fellow brutarians, Dr Moreau is here to answer all of our
prayers.
Directed by Charles Band, he of low budget horror legend status,
unhealthy obsessed by killer doll movies (Blood Dolls, Puppet Master,
Dollman vs. Demonic Toys) here he takes a stab at the film noir genre,
bringing us a tale of human / animal experimentation in Prohibition era
America.
All the noir trappings are there: smoky streets, illuminated only by
atmospheric streetlamps, wiseguys in brimmed hats, broads in fur coats
and shawls with cigarette holders stuck between their well rouged lips,
and automobiles relevant to the period and, it must be stressed, for a
low budget movie he does a remarkable job of 'placing' the movie.
Whilst the plot is a fairly silly one, involving a young man searching
for his brother who went to Dr. Moreau for treatment and was
transformed into half man, half big cat, the trappings surrounding it
work very well.
Whilst hardly Orwellian, the script is nevertheless effective enough,
and the acting more than passable.
So, if you, like me, find yourself yearning for those hybrids anytime
soon, you could do worse than check this out