I've been thinking long and hard, and the way I see it, there are only a couple of angles I could take to discuss the spirituality found within Piranha 3D. One angle would be the morality tale. For instance, one can read the Friday the 13th films as a long tale of why teenagers shouldn't drink, have sex, and generally do sinful things. Because if they do, Jason will punish them. The problem with that angle is that piranhas don't care what you do, whether bad or good. They just want to eat you.

I could also take the approach where I analyze our society and question exactly why it is that we ask our films to entertain us in such blunt and bloody ways. Nah.

I guess another possibility would be to figure out if the piranhas are Christ figures. They do rise again from their extinction!

But when it comes down to it, this film really isn't about all that much. I've been watching the behind-the-scenes feature-length documentary, and the filmmakers pretty much say that all they wanted to do was make a crazy '80s throwback with lots of nudity and gore. They have succeeded!

Every year, thousands of partying teenagers descend on Lake Victoria to debauch themselves. And about every twenty million years or so, that lake experiences a seismic rift which unearths a pack of ancient and cannibalistic piranhas. This year happens to be that twenty-millionth year.

Since the school of deadly piranhas aren't really characters, but more so instruments of mass death, Piranha 3D is filled with characters around which to hang a plot. So we follow Sheriff Forrester (Elisabeth Shue) as she discovers the infestation and tries to save the partiers. We also follow her teenaged son as he hops on a "girls gone wild" boat while his younger siblings come into harm's way. Eventually the story all comes together with about a hundred or so chewed up corpses and a rescue effort to bring the Forrester family all back together.

This movie ultimately has two things on its mind: boobs. Okay, three things, boobs and gore. I personally feel like those really were the filmmakers' goals. And with Piranha 3D they have crafted a film that is absurd, stripped down (at every level of meaning), and breakneck-paced. This isn't a film to ponder or meditate on. This is a visceral film filled with viscera. It succeeds entirely at being what it is intended to be. But many viewers likely have no desire to get bit by this one.

The Package

Piranha 3D actually IS a 3D Blu-ray! But I couldn't experience it that way because I don't have a 3D equipped television. But it is neat that 3D is an option here. The practical effects of the movie are amazing to behold, but the computer generated effects are a cheese fest and the high definition just sort of illuminates that even further. I also find it fascinating that a film this shallow has a two-plus hour making-of documentary. But the doc shows how much love and care and attention was paid to creating a film that viewers could really blast through without engaging their brains!