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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - August 20th

"PIRANHA 3D" released in 2010

When an underwater earthquake on Lake Victoria splits the lake floor, it exposes a lost underwater cavern and unleashes a strain of previously unrecorded, prehistoric (and very hungry!) piranha into the waters above! Already dealing with the 1,000's of college kids in town for Spring Break, Sheriff Julie Forester (Elisabeth Shue) must now contend with a school of vicious man-eating fish, and save her two children - Jake (Steven R. McQueen), Laura (Brooklynn Proulx), and Zane (Sage Ryan) - who are stranded somewhere on the lake, in Alexandre Aja's remake, Piranha 3D!

Watch the Piranha 3D trailer below!

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As the annual Spring Break descends on the Arizona town of Lake Victoria, an underwater earthquake unleashes a marauding school of man-eating piranha into the waters, already eating a local fisherman Matt Boyd (a hilarious cameo from Richard Dreyfuss). As the tourists pour in, Jake Forester (McQueen), son of the local Sheriff, Julie Forester (Shue), reunites with his old crush Kelly Driscoll (Jessica Szohr). In an attempt to impress her, Jake accepts a job from sleazy video producer Derrick Jones (Jerry O'Connell) to act as a local guide while Derrick and his cameraman Andrew Cunningham (Paul Scheer) films a "movie" onboard his boat The Barracuda, with adult actresses Danni (Kelly Brook) and Crystal (Riley Steele). Jake bribes his sister Laura (Proulx) and brother Zane (Ryan) to stay home alone and then asks Kelly to join him on the lake, which she accepts. Meanwhile, Julie escorts a team of seismologists - Novak Radzinsky (Adam Scott), with divers Sam Montez (Ricardo Chavira), and Paula Montellano (Dina Meyer) - to the underwater fissure. Novak speculates that the rift leads to a buried prehistoric lake. Novak is proved right as Paula and Sam scuba dive to the bottom and discover a large cavern, also discovering it is filled with large piranha egg stocks. Both Sam and Paula are killed by the piranhas, with Novak and Julie finding Paula's corpse and pull it onto the boat, accidentally also capturing a lone piranha. Taking the specimen to a marine biologist Carl Goodman (Christopher Lloyd), Goodman explains that these particular piranha are a highly aggressive prehistoric species, long believed to be extinct, and that the piranhas have survived through cannibalism. Realising they are now loose in the waters of Lake Victoria, Julie rallies her deputies, Fallon (Ving Rhames) and Taylor Roberts, to try to evacuate the lake, but their warnings are ignored, until the piranhas begin to fiercely attack a Wet T-Shirt competition, with almost everyone in the lake being either wounded, dismembered, or killed (including Fallon - presumabely). After the massacre, Julie is shocked to discover that the Barracudda is stranded and sinking in an isolated spot on the lake - having been damaged when Derrick crashed the boat into rocks while being forced by Jake to rescue Laura and Zane from an island on the lake. Julie and Novak desperately race against time to reach her children and the remaining survivors before they too are eaten by the marauding piranha!

[while examining the piranha Julie and Novak captured]
Dr. Goodman: Piranha hunt in packs - not for protection, but for overwhelming force. They're organized, methodical. The first bite draws blood. The blood draws the pack.

Top:   Sheriff Julie Forester (Elisabeth Shue) escorts seismologist Novak (Adam Scott) to the fissure;

Above:   Doomed diver, Sam (Ricardo Chavira), discovers just what is alive in the underwater cavern!

Originally, Chuck Russell (director of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and The Blob) was chosen to helm the picture, even making uncredited rewrites to the script by Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger (with 2002's The Ring screenwriter Ehren Kruger). Ultimately however, Bob Weinstien of Dimension Films would approach Alexandre Aja to direct, having already made two recent remakes, The Hills Have Eyes (2006) and Mirrors (2008). On of the first to be cast was model and actress Kelly Brook, whom Aja first met at a restaurant he was eating lunch at. Brook later auditioned with an American accent which deeply disappointed director Aja, who called her back and asked her to speak in her natural English accent; feeling the character would be much more appealing if Brook played her in her normal voice. The remaining cast for Piranha 3D - including Elisabeth Shue, Adam Scott, Ving Rhames, Steven R. McQueen, and Jerry O'Connell - were joined by an eclectic mix of supporting actors in supporting roles (with more than a few of them being active adult film stars!).

Richard Dreyfuss said that he accepted the role of Matt Boyd after Bob Weinstein persuaded him by offering him a larger salary (which Dreyfuss later donated to charity), and played his character as a parody and a near-reincarnation of Matt Hooper, the character he portrayed in the 1975 film Jaws (Jaws incidentally also acted as the inspiration for the original Piranha) - this included Boyd humming the song "Show Me the Way to Go Home" while fishing on his boat. Christopher Lloyd also made a cameo as marine biologist Carl Goodman. Ultimately, Dreyfuss would spend only two days on the set filming, while Lloyd completed all his scenes in just one day! Cabin Fever and Hostel director Eli Roth also cameo-ed as the Wet T-Shirt Competition MC. Piranha 3D also featured a number of adult film stars, including Riley Steele as Crystal, with Ashlynn Brooke and Gianna Michaels. Michaels was a last-minute replacement for another pornographic actress Natasha Nice, who got arrested while working on a hardcore movie prior to the shooting of her scene. Each one would ultimately play victims in the picture; Steele is eaten by the piranhas, Michaels is killed while parasailing (topless, of course), and Brooke plays the member of the wet t-shirt/cheerleading squad who is cut in half by the loose steel cable. Alexandre Aja also planned to have Joe Dante (director of the original Piranha (1978)) and James Cameron (director of Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1981)) to play boat captains who give safety lessons to the teens. Dante wanted to do it, but unfortunately Cameron was too busy, so the scene was scrapped.

TRIVIA:   Kelly Brook and Riley Steele spent two weeks training for their naked synchronized underwater swimming set piece.

Top:   Sleazy porn director Derrick Jones (Jerry O'Connell) films stars Danni (Kelly Brook) and Crystal (Riley Steele);

Above:   Jake (Steven R. McQueen) finally confesses his feelings to Kelly (Jessica Szohr) 

Production on the film was scheduled to begin late 2008, but was delayed until March 2009, with Aja explaining,  "It's such a difficult movie, not only because of the technicality of it and the CGI fish, but also because it all happens in a lake... the movie takes place during Spring Break and, of course, the studio wanted it ready for the summer, but if you've got 1,000 people who need to get murdered in the water, you have to wait for the right temperature for the water, for the weather, for everything." Filming finally began shooting on Lake Havasu, Arizona, a popular place for real spring breakers. For the climatic water massacre, 1,112 boats were used and an estimated 75,000 gallons of fake blood were used for each of the nine days it took to shoot (an amazing 675,000 gallons of fake blood!). Citing constraints with 3D camera rigs, Aja shot Piranha in 2D and converted to 3D in post production using a 3D conversion process developed by Michael Roderick and used by the company, Inner-D. Unlike some other 3D converted films released in 2010, Piranha's conversion was always planned and not done as an afterthought, and it was one of the first post-conversion processes to be well received by critics.

[Julie, rescuing her children and others from the sinking boat]
Julie Forester: Are you sure you can do this?
Danni: You better believe it.
[Climbing on the rope]
Danni: I don't pole dance for nothing!
Julie Forester: [Rounding angrily on her son] You've got a lot of explaining to do, young man!

Top:   Director Alexandre Aja with Elisabeth Shue on set;

Above:   Aja filming the climactic water massacre!

Even though a TV spot was banned because it had too much gore (and it also revealed the ending to the movie), no cuts were demanded by the MPAA. Piranha 3D also was not screened for critics, although, unusually in such circumstances, the critics actually liked it! Empire gave the film three out of five stars, saying "Remember the film you hoped Snakes on a Plane would be – this is it! By any sane cinematic standards, meretricious trash ... but thrown at you with such good-humored glee that it's hard to resist. It's a bumper-sticker of a movie: honk if you love tits and gore! Honk honk honk."  Christy Lemire, film critic for the Associated Press, said "Run, don't walk: Piranha 3D is hilariously, cleverly gory. Mere words cannot describe how awesomely gnarly Piranha 3D is, how hugely entertaining, and how urgently you must get yourself to the theater to see it. Like, now."  HollywoodLife.com called the film "a campy masterpiece of a movie", adding "If you have an ounce of fun in your body, you will love this movie about killer piranhas that overtake a town of hotties – in 3D!".

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   73%