Movie Review - Piranha DD

Piranha DD (2012)

Starring Daniele Panabaker, Matt Bush, Katrina Bowden, David Koechner, Christopher Lloyd, and David Hasselhoff 

Directed by John Gulager

"Josh cut off his penis because [a piranha] came out of my vagina."

I start with that line because that sums up Piranha DD (or Piranha 3DD as it was titled in the very few theaters it actually played in), the sequel to the so-bad-it's-enjoyable Piranha 3D.  This movie is awful and it's dialog like the line above that add to the sheer absurdity.  Unfortunately, while the film does fall into the same so-awful-it's watchable category as the first film, this sequel doesn't do a thing different and ultimately makes it a pointless retread without any merits for actually existing.

What little plot there is begins shortly after the events in the first film in which piranhas invaded Lake Victoria, Arizona.  It won't come as the biggest surprise to hear that the man-eating fish have resurfaced, but with a newfound sense of intelligence that allows them to get into man-made water systems to conveniently possibly invade places like The Big Wet waterpark, half-owned by wacky entrepreneur Chet (David Koechner).  Chet co-owns the park with his stepdaughter Maddy (Daniele Panabaker) who returns home from college to discover that Chet has turned The Big Wet into an adult funzone where nudity is encouraged and projected onto giant screens via the underwater Cooch Cam.  [I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.]  Of course, this is simply an attempt to throw as many naked bodies onto the screen as possible and it succeeds in that venture.

But where Piranha DD doesn't succeed is in being original.  Granted, I recognized the flaws in the first film, but in this sequel, we get absolutely nothing new and it simply cheapens whatever brand the filmmakers were attempting to create.  At times, it's almost a literal scene-by-scene repeat with the film even stooping so low as to having a piranha latch on once again to a guy's penis (as referenced in that glorious quote above) only to have said appendage be chopped off.  While that may have been grossly funny the first time around, here it just reeks of laziness on behalf of the writers.

"Lazy" is just a good all around word to describe this thing.  It's not that it's a whole lot worse than the first film, but Piranha DD doesn't even attempt to do anything new and resting on its already shaky laurels wasn't the way to go with this one.  I can't lie and say I didn't have a good time watching this -- talking back to screen with other people can certainly make this more enjoyable than it has any right to be -- but if you wanna see a crappy movie, you're better off just renting the first one and watching that again.

The RyMickey Rating:  D+