Review: Megapiranha

by James on May.04, 2010, under Personal

Made by Asylum Studios for the idiotically renamed SyFy (seriously, where they trying to pull a Prince or something?), Megapiranha promises and hour and a half of mind meltingly sublime cinema.

Asylum Studios is probably my favorite peddler of schlock movies. They understand that they are not making A list movies and don’t bother trying to pretend they are. This gives their movies a tongue in cheek feel to them that makes them as fun as they are stupid.

The very premise of the movie is hilarious. Apparently some scientists, in an attempt to end world hunger, decide to genetically engineer fish to grow extraordinarily large. Of course, tuna or bass are much too mundane so they decided to use a “particularly bloodthirsty” strain of piranha. Seriously.

The story opens up with two lovers swimming in a secluded area of the Orinoco river. If you squint and cross your eyes like you are looking at one of those magic eye pictures you can almost see the opening scene from Jaws.

After that, the fish swim downstream and eat the American ambassador to Venezuela who is out drinking and whoring on a river boat with his counterpart. Of course, this is labeled as terrorism and our hero is flown in (an actor who was hired solely on his ability to grimace).

As the film progresses, the piranhas get progressively larger until they start eating naval vessels, submarines and the Florida Keys. After nuclear weapons fail to stop the giant fish, our hero (and some expendable comestibles) decide to fight them underwater with 20 mm hand cannons. Surprising, this fails and the fish are only stopped by the last second stealing of another scene from Jaws.

A piece of humor for the sharp eyed viewer, there is not even a little bit of an attempt of continuity. See how many different cars various actors drive as they change frequently and usually while in motion.

On a final note, if you were wondering where they would have possible come up with an idea for this movie, here it is.