Mega Piranha

Mega Piranha is on, right now on the SciFi Channel (I refuse to call that channel what its actually been renamed; that's just bloody stupid). There are piranhas as big as jumbo jets jumping out of the river and exploding on impact. Some bad-ass martial arts dude just used some mixed martial arts to kill some baby piranhas which were as big as refrigerators. Anyway, I was just talking to a buddy of mine. Years ago back in junior high, my friends and I used to come up with stupid ideas for movies to pass the time away in school. Well, one of those ideas were about giant piranhas as big as Godzilla terrorizing some city. We were kids and we knew that was frig gin' stupid. But Asylum Films, they're laughing all the way to the bank. I went hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to get a master's degree to teach English Lit. to kids who don't even give a crap when I could have taken all those stupid ideas for movies way back in the day and made them for the SciFi Channel. Jesus! I am an idiot!

I had too much fun laughing at this to vote it lower than a 5.

Piranhas are already pretty fearsome creatures. So naturally, some scientists genetically mutate them. Things go wrong; the creatures escape into a Venezuelan river, and start to "grow exponentially." So a big guy on steroids named Fitch is sent to aid Venezuelan soldiers to fight the menace. They look like Castro impersonators, and end up chasing him around, for whatever reason.

When the Sec. of State looks like a Brady and is named Grady, you know the "Asylum" movie makers are just "winking at the audience." The action-film meets sci-fi motif is played with over-the-top gusto: look for piranha jumping high into the air and slamming their victims down like a sledgehammer. I didn't know they could do that. Even mutated ones. Steroid Fitch kick-boxes an entire school of piranha senseless in a great Jackie Chan moment. The super-sized creatures crash themselves into Key West hotels. Battleships get turned into Fish Filet sandwiches. The TV news reporter doing play-by-play of a piranha attack, the bit about tail fins, Col. Valdez inexplicably showing up in Florida; hilarious.

Most of the time it makes absolutely no sense what's going on, with absurd scientific plot holes everywhere. There's no intent for this to be taken seriously; and taken at face value it's classic B movie silliness.

This is one of the worst movies I have seen on SyFy. Their ability to make good movies decrease with every new "original movie" they make. While the location shots were great the film itself was one of the worst I have ever seen. Paul Logan was the only good actor in the movie. It was hard to see Barry Williams diminish his star quality by doing such a low quality picture. Tiffany proves she has no acting skills at all. She could not deliver lines while doing anything else. One scene she was running from danger, had to stop, deliver lines and wait for someone to give her a cue to run again. The extras were just as bad! Doesn't look like they were given any direction in what to do. One scene they go to arrest the hero and he's not there. They just stood there and looked around, no movement just stood in look. I would only recommend this film to film students wanting to know what to do to make a quality film.

If you are a fan of really bad movies, and I am, this is a must. I think it was conceived and written by a bunch of teen aged boys who aren't into women yet (no T and A). It has everything else that they love. It has lots of car chases in exotic locals, with big shiny American cars racing down dirt roads, lots of stuff blowing up, lots of shooting and a lot of really, really big fishies.

The dialog is what you would expect, also conceived by a bunch of little kids. The scenes along the river are just plain stupid. Why, when you know that the big fishies are able to jump for unknown distances, would anyone stand on a river bank.

It is doom from the word go...in every sense of the word.

I am 70 years old and have seen some really badly conceived plots and dialog, but this one is a keeper.

Well, folks...Syfy has done it again. Another sub-B movie churned out in the same tier as Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. I normally get a laugh out of this sort of flick; the purple prose script with cheesy delivery, the absurd plots with more holes than a screen door and the shockingly bad cg are all fodder for mocking and jeering with friends. Still, these movies can only achieve the rank of risibly bad classics if the writers, actors and directors are completely oblivious to just how terrible a film they've unleashed upon the world. Syfy originals seem to exist for the sake of being entertainingly awful, and it is that bent-on-wrecking-this-train mentality that makes this and many other movies lame.

The movie follows the same formula that plagues the made for TV nature-horror scene. Follow these steps and you too can be a Scifi writer! Take some normal animals that aren't much of a threat and make them huge/super strong/intelligent (pick any super-animal attribute. It really doesn't matter). Science creates then tries to control the bastard chimeras, but of course scientists are nerds, so they should fail. This is usually because the military/some evil corporation ruins everything with snafu after snafu. This step is important because it serves as a diatribe to meddling scientists, overconfident military leaders and corporate America. Your script now has depth and you can tote your worth as a writer that cares about the issues. Insert the big, bad protagonist. He should be able to punch and kick his way through hordes of monsters that have ripped through countless crewman number 6s and still look damn good doing it. You can also add a strong independent and flawlessly attractive girl to the script. The more independent you make her, the more substance the script has. It is important to acknowledge that women are every bit as amazing your beefcake hero and your creation will be so revolutionary that even a feminist won't scoff at it(you'll also have a slightly better chance of scoring with the lead lady). You now have the tools to start your own script. I don't want to flood the market with great writers, so you'll have to figure out the end for yourself. Use a lot of fake blood, clean up obvious plot holes with single lines like, "Yeah, well things change," and insert as many bikini-clad women as your budget will allow and I'm sure everything will be fine.

This movie works on many of the same levels, and it is sure to be one of the most critically acclaimed thrillers of this or any year. Just remember: regardless of whether a piranha is doubling in size every 2 days or 36 hours, it is growing exponentially.