Piranha 3D

"There's something in the water."

2010 1h 28m EN

😐

5.4

MID

🍅

76%

FRESH

😬

METACRITIC

⭐

5.5

IMDB

★5.4TMDB · 2,469🍅76%Rotten Tomatoes●53Metacritic★5.5IMDB · 103,372

ComedyHorror

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Each year the population of sleepy Lake Victoria, Arizona explodes from 5,000 to 50,000 residents for the annual Spring Break celebration. But then, an earthquake opens an underwater chasm, releasing an enormous swarm of ancient Piranha that have been dormant for thousands of years, now with a taste for human flesh. This year, there's something more to worry about than the usual hangovers and complaints from locals, a new type of terror is about to be cut loose on Lake Victoria.

“There's something in the water.”

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Cast

Elisabeth Shue
Julie Forester
Jerry O'Connell
Derrick Jones
Steven R. McQueen
Jake Forester
Jessica Szohr
Kelly Driscoll
Kelly Brook
Danni
Ving Rhames
Deputy Fallon
Christopher Lloyd
Mr. Goodman
Dina Meyer
Paula Montellano

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Alexandre Aja
Writers: Josh Stolberg
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

RUNTIME

Did you know

88 minutes exactly — the "classic feature" runtime most directors aim for.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Made its money back 3.5× over at the box office.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 16 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

CINEMA

Did you know

Part of the "Piranha 3D Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

CAST

Did you know

351+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Alexandre Aja, shot by John R. Leonetti. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Michael Wandmacher. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Baxter shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Alexandre Aja directs. John R. Leonetti behind the camera. Michael Wandmacher scores. Baxter cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

188 minutes exactly — the "classic feature" runtime most directors aim for.
2Made its money back 3.5× over at the box office.
3Released 16 years ago.
4Part of the "Piranha 3D Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.
5351+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.
6Directed by Alexandre Aja, shot by John R. Leonetti. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
7Original score by Michael Wandmacher. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
8Editor Baxter shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
9Elisabeth Shue and Jerry O'Connell and Steven R. McQueen carry the top of the cast.
10Marketing tagline: "There's something in the water.".
11IMDB entry: tt0464154 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
12Classified under 9 themes, including "grave", "film in film", "scuba diving", "creature".
13Released under 10 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: John R. Leonetti
Original score: Michael Wandmacher
Editing: Baxter
Production design: Clark Hunter
Costume design: Sanja Milkovic Hays
Makeup / hair: Katherine James
VFX supervisor: Matt Jacobs
Sound: Martin Pinsonnault
Stunt coordinator: Alex Daniels
Runtime: 88 min · 1h 28m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $24,000,000
Box office: $83,188,165
Return: 347% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: Piranha 3D (2010)
Rotten Tomatoes: 76% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 53/100
IMDB rating: 5.5/10 · 103,372 votes
MPAA: R

Awards

2 wins & 12 nominations total

Part of

Piranha 3D Collection

A comedy horror film series inspired by and a remake of the 1978 film Piranha.

Also by

Alexandre Aja

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

Full-resolution frames — open one to save it as a wallpaper.

Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

Gimly2017-07-10
★ 5/10
When evil, inbred, cannibal, devilish, prehistoric, underground piranha are unleashed on the tiny town of Lake Victoria during "Spring Break", the outcome is all rather predictable. Babes, bikinis, boobs, bums, blood, bazulco and bad acting. Run from a budget of $24M the film has almost no actors of note in lead roles. Although there is a cameo from Eli Roth (Inglourious Basterds), which is always cool. What we have here, is a virtually flawless example of stupid fun. There's no point in trying to evaluate a film like Piranha 3D on factors like good taste, because it goes out of its way to smash these conventions apart. The film has this crazy energy about it from beginning to end. It also however, is the perfect example of why 3D is so fucking unnecessary. And though I appreciate how forward the film is, that doesn't make it strictly speaking good. It's part creature-feature, part horror-comedy, but it doesn't stand up in a thrill sense to actual monster movies like Anaconda or King Kong, and it doesn't stand up in a humour sense to actual horror comedy like Shaun of the Dead or Dead Snow, but it sort of takes off on its own in a passable manner. Though it's kiiinda humorous, the film is mostly just "fun", as opposed to "funny". The script seems cobbled together with a couple of different half assed plot points, but several half ass plots taped together is better than just one half assed plot trying to hold its own and ending up looking like no plot at all. Exploitation has never really been A-grade material, and even though the "suspension of disbelief" thing that films are supposed to have as a general rule, is sort of... not here, Piranha 3D still manages to somehow get this piece of crap off the ground. I watched it at about 2am with a male friend of mine who has very similar taste and sense of humour to me, and that's pretty much got to be the best possible setting to watch it in. The CG gore is ridiculous, the 3D focus is ridiculous, the film itself is just fucking ridiculous. But brainless is great sometimes, just don't make a habit of thinking that you can get away with bad exploitation, and calling it Black Comedy, once or twice is fine, but soon it just looks like you're aiming for cult, and getting lazy. -Gimly
Dark Jedi2018-03-06
★ 4/10
This is the 2010 remake of the old classic. The original is pretty much crap so I bought this one solely based on the fact that it has been getting unusually good reviews from both critics as well as viewers. I have to say that I am at loss as to why. There are loads of much better films in the action/horror/fantasy genre’s that, at least the so called “critics” totally hammer. Why the hell this trash got so good scores is beyond me. The female acting consists of showing off your boobs then get eaten. The male acting consists of being an asshole, get your dick eaten, then get the rest eaten. The main “event” is a contrived scene when the main asshole get his dick bitten off and the piranhas eat it and spit it out again under water. I’m sure the 3D effects made it even more ridiculous than in 2d. I usually have rather high tolerance for poor acting and bad scripts when it comes to otherwise effects and gore loaded films but most of this film I was just thinking, “what the f... is this shit!”. Most of the film was just scenes stashed on top of each other designed to show of 3D effects with boobs and various ways a human could get eaten. This is a typical example of why 3D is bad for the movie industry.
John Chard2018-10-08
★ 7/10
Piranha hunt in packs - not for protection, but for overwhelming force. Actually many of today's younger multiplex goers hunt in packs, they know what they like and they know how to have a good time with even the most crude or banal movie. I don't mean that as an insult, it's just indicative of the film market available to them, it's the reason why films like this here Piranha remake/re-imaging/re-jig exists and makes money. Even "spawning" a franchise on occasions. Alexandre Aja's Piranha 3D is a complete machine gun of a movie, it knew exactly how to sell tickets at the box office. Even before the 3D was used as a selling point, the word down the grapevine was the promise of lithe bodies in beach wear and loads of CGI killer fish shredding the hell out of a whole community. And that's exactly what is delivered, only with extras that see considerable nudity in the mammary areas and Elisabeth Shue and Ving Rhames kicking buttocks. It's all very bloody, even lurid and exploitive, while it's difficult to know if you are meant to laugh, scream or do something that Russ Meyer would endorse? But, and I say this as a middle aged old fart, there is so much fun to be had here if you are prepared to unscrew your head and take out your brain. Strap yourselves in Piranha 3D haters, your grandchildren might just be enjoying in the future: Piranha 27: Sexy Mechanoid Bimbos Fight Back. But will they hate themselves in the morning? 7/10