At the 2010 Scream Awards, the Best Worst Movie was awarded to Piranha 3D for supplying entertainment at its own expense. With that and the reviews on the DVD’s reading ”It’s ‘Jaws’ gone wild!” and “This movie is a complete blast…” this would come off as a film right up the alley of someone who likes bad horror. This, however, is not the case as Piranha 3D (retitled simply as Piranha for its DVD release) is abundantly aware of how terrible it is, and plays that off as its finest quality. This intentional campiness, coupled only with blood, boobs, and bad CGI, devalues this even as a bad film; a true bad film is comical because of the failed attempts at genuine quality.

Piranha takes place in a setting one would expect from a sensationalist remake of a Jaws rip-off: a popular party beach on its busiest week, Spring Break. Jake (Steven R. McQueen) is a local who reluctantly works as a guide for a Girls Gone Wild inspired porn crew. Things get awkward when the girl of Jake’s affections tags along at the last minute to spite Jake. When things can’t seem to get worse, prehistoric Piranhas are released from an underground cave and wreak havoc on the unsuspecting porn crew and the beachgoers. Yes the reasoning for this fish attack is as banal as an opening to an underground cavern that they have been living in.

When there isn’t a poorly created piranha nibbling off someone’s flesh, there are most likely breasts. One line, without which Jake wouldn’t have gone with the porn crew and the movie would not have existed, is a young girl telling a woman, “Nice boobs.” You can’t get that kind of subtlety just anywhere; you have to go to films like this one.

This DVD comes with a five piece behind the scenes feature that runs about 90 minutes all together. They cover things like the cast and crew, the location, the partiers, the effects, but the one that stands out is Blood & Gore. If there was one positive aspect to this film, it was the blood and gore effects. The bodies looked realistic, and watching how they pulled off different kills was the best part of the entire DVD. Seeing how they would green screen people’s limbs out of shots, and how they created lifelike props of people was much more entertaining than watching the movie they were made for.

If there is one thing I stand for as a horror fan, it’s that a movie has to give more than just cool kills and naked women, and Piranha’s kills are nothing special. People who are looking for what the movie advertises itself as won’t be disappointed; you get exactly what you’re in for with this one. In that regard it is hard to say the film

is bad. Even director Alexandre Aja says that it was made to be an exploitation horror likes those of the 1980’s. Within that context, this movie doesn’t fail to deliver.