Dennis Van Zak’s propaganda film is very much on par with “Reefer Madness” and that’s just shocking how much the two parallel toward one another. While “Reefer Madness” was a complete exaggeration of the negative aspects of marijuana use, Dennis Van Zak completely reduces the positive aspects of marijuana use to such an optimistic degree that it’s absolutely comical and cartoonish. Both films are basically intent on conveying a message about the use of cannabis and both films basically evade any and all scientific research in exchange for their agenda toward audiences. The only real difference with “Aphrodisiac!” and “Reefer Madness” is that Van Zak’s film is basically just a short form porn film with testimonials so utterly idiotic it’s worth a good laugh or two. In fact I would recommend audiences be obscenely high while viewing this film.
Flying Piranhas! Flying fucking piranhas! How does one mess up a film about flying piranhas?! I would love to view “Piranha II” as a film experience that’s so bad it’s good, but in reality it’s so bad that it’s actually just bad. It’s no wonder James Cameron tries to pretend he had nothing to do with this film and disowns it like a stepchild. It’s a bad movie and one that poorly takes off from the concept the 1978 film laid down. It’s a shame that a movie that completely reworks the concept of killer piranhas in to something even cheesier basically doesn’t have a clue on how to handle the creatures.
Admittedly up until this year I hadn’t actually seen Joe Dante’s “Piranha” before. And for folks who still haven’t seen it to this day in spite of its apparent cult status, Dante’s horror picture might be a little jarring. Tonally “Piranha” is unusual and quite surreal. The first half of the film is almost like a B dark comedy featuring drawn out bouts of exposition and a small stop motion bipedal fish walking around a secret lab for some inexplicable reason. The next half then suddenly becomes a stern straight faced horror film with the atmosphere amped up to eleven. It’s such an oddity on film that I couldn’t help but enjoy it from start to finish.
Let’s be real here, it’s not like “Piranha 3D” was a cerebral ride in to the inner depths of human complexity. It was a basically ridiculous and absolutely brain dead film that, in spite of my original negative review, is something of a movie I can sit through for ninety minutes to pass the time. “Piranha 3D” is watchable in spite of its awfulness because it knows how to balance humor and terror and makes use of its throwbacks. This sequel however fails on every conceivable level and is practically the antithesis of entertainment. It’s a black hole of nothing sometimes, with a premise that goes nowhere when it’s going everywhere.
