Tag: 2010

Directed by James Nguyen [Other horror films: Birdemic 2: The Resurrection (2013)]

I’ve not seen this film before, but I’ve long heard it was a doozy, and boy, is it ever.

I won’t go into all that’s wrong about this movie. The meandering first half, focusing on a boring individuals’ romantic life for the first 48 minutes. The clearly computer-animated birds, and the fact that they somehow have the ability to dive bomb into buildings and blow up. The stilted acting and atrocious dialogue. The minute-long scene of people clapping. The stock music on repeat. The prolonged ending. About everything that could go wrong in a movie went wrong here.

I’ll say one positive thing about this movie: the actress who played Natalie, Whitney Moore, was pretty attractive. She couldn’t act worth shit, but she did do far better than Alan Bagh, who gave one of the worst performances I’ve seen in a while. And the constant talking about going green, and solar panels, and preventing global warming. Obviously, I’m all for these things, but come on, tone it down. This movie is not helping the case to go green whatsoever.

Aside from the pretty Moore, this movie is an embarrassment. Definitely a movie to watch with a bunch of friends while drunk or high, but that’s about it. Still, as bad as it is, you will definitely be amused, which is why it’s not getting a lower rating.

3/10

Directed by Alexandre Aja [Other horror films: Haute tension (2003), The Hills Have Eyes (2006), Mirrors (2008), Horns (2013), Crawl (2019), Never Let Go (2024)]

I don’t think anyone would claim this movie amazing, or I hope no one would, anyway. But it does accomplish it’s goal, and that’s to entertain the hell out of the audience.

Most of the characters are annoying idiots, but as half of them get eaten in the fantastic piranha rampage about halfway through the movie, I can’t rightly hold it against them. Some of the characters are solid, though – Sheriff Forester does all she can to both ensure the safety of her own children and her community. Deputy Fallon goes all out in trying to save people during the rampage. Jake’s valiant attempts to save Kelly, a character herself who sort of got pulled into this whole thing, show him a person of high worth. So we have some solid people, who I feel make up well for the Derricks of the world.

The gore in the movie, at least to me, is the biggest selling point, and I feel they did pretty well. The aforementioned massacre has long been a favorite scene of mine – the blood, the chaos, all done so wonderfully. The nudity’s a bit less captivating, but I can only imagine it’d help pull some more people in to watch the film. Overall, this second Piranha remake (after, of course, the 1978 original and the 1995 failure few recall) is quite enjoyable for what it is. It’s not amazing, not to me, but it does what it set out to do, and that’s all I can ask.

7.5/10