Piranha 3D Review
Before watching this I had never seen a movie from Alexandre Aja, mostly because his films reminded me of Rob Zombie’s aesthetic if he just went for relentlessness rather than a grungy early 2000s edge lord vibe (with torture porn to match). After watching this movie I was proven right, with two notable exceptions: One being that I actually saw one of Aja’s movies, and two being that Aja doesn’t entirely shy away from OTHER reasons as to why this film is a Hard R (it’s both torture porn and softcore porn at its worst, essentially). Granted I’ve only seen this film once around the time when it came out, but it’s definitely the kind of movie that doesn’t just stop at piranhas (let’s just say there are a plethora of accidental deaths to the point you think that if Mr. Aja could never direct a certain horror film franchise about accidental deaths, especially since the fourth part preceded Piranha 3D, then he could at least inspire the fifth part which would ultimately come out the year that followed). I can only summarize that, much like Dr. Sleep went for one cruel scene to bring back the 80s, Piranha 3D is just flat out aware of how the 70s exploitation flicks (which paved the way to the original Jaws cash-in around that time) were essentially given a run for their money compared to the gruesome trash we’ve gotten in the late 90s, as well as early 2000s, and just aims to do more than just update it as much as it could given the premise and the director’s experience. It works, just at the fundamental cost of the replay value which most 70s exploitation flicks (or even the films they inspired) wanted around that time.