A modern grindhouse pic that gets it almost entirely right. At Lake Havasu (well, it's called something else in the film) during Spring Break, a rift in the bottom of the lake unleashes a swarm of prehistoric piranhas on to the nubile flesh cavorting above. It's well-paced, campy without being ridiculous, and it does not skimp on the exploitation; there is tons of gratuitous nudity and gore. In fact, my biggest problem with the film is that the gore, especially during the feeding frenzy scene in the third act, gets just a little too gruesome. A couple of the shots were a little too nasty even for the tone of the film, and I've had a hard time shaking them. Maybe I'm just a wimp.
The acting is solid, with Elizabeth Shue as a tough-as-nails sherrif, Adam Scott as an earthquake expert, and a hideous Jerry O'Connell as, essentially, Joe Francis, the
Girls Gone Wild impresario. His death scene, gruesome as it is, was pretty enjoyable. Oh, and the lovely and talented English actress Kelly Brook is in it to add some RADA-trained classiness. Image below.
