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Episode 98: Piranha 3D featuring Kyle McLachlan
81 Plays14 days ago
Kyle McLachlan, host of the podcast Combat Chronicles, appears to be leaping off the screen and into the studio with the horror comedy Piranha 3D. This Alexandre Aja remake of an 80s horror classic promises all the joys of skinny dipping + piranhas, and it delivers whole-heartedly. A packed cast of known names (Elizabeth Shue, Jerry O’Connel, Adam Scott, Ving Rhames, Christopher Lloyd, Kelly Brook and others) appear for varying amounts of screen time, and some of them even live until the end. Also Steve McQueen’s grandson is in it, you know him right? It walks the strange line of Bad On Purpose, So Bad It’s Good, and Knowing the Assignment that it’s a delightful cinematic ride through boobs and gore, so tune in!
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Transcript
Introduction & Guest Introduction
00:00:40
Speaker
hello, hello, and welcome to your favorite bad movie podcast. It's the only podcast that's brave enough to ask the question, if this movie's so bad, why do you like it so much?
00:00:51
Speaker
We're your hosts. My name is Chris Anderson. And with me, as always, is my Novak to my Forrester, my lovely wife, Anna Anderson. How are you doing, my dove?
00:01:05
Speaker
Doing pretty good. Yes, that's what I like to hear. Unfortunately, i hate to say it. GEDZOOP. We don't have...
00:01:19
Speaker
We do not have the Andrew to my Derek, Mr. Greg Bossy here today, but we do have with us a very special guest.
Focus on Piranha 3D - Plot & Appeal
00:01:28
Speaker
You might know him as a host of the podcast Combat Chronicles. I certainly think of him as a good man, so he must be our own personal goodman. It's Kyle McLaughlin. How are you doing, Kyle? Yo, how's it going, everyone? Everyone okay, I'm hoping, on this ah wonderful, wonderful day. um Yeah, indeed, host of Combat Chronicles, but so movie fan for longer than I've been a fight fan and very, very happy to be talking about this ah nearly dogshit film with you guys today. Yeah, it's funny. This one was...
00:02:01
Speaker
A fun little picture. ah Listeners, this week we're talking about Piranha 3D. If you haven't seen Piranha 3D, here's just a brief summary to hold in your mind as we progress throughout the rest of the show.
00:02:22
Speaker
An ancient species of piranha swarms Lake Victoria in Arizona during spring break. It's just a complete bloodbath.
00:02:35
Speaker
Also, tits. Yes, yes, it is spring break. That is very important. And they are out. What does it say about me that I've chosen a deeply misogynist film for my ah debut on your show? Hopefully doesn' it doesn't reflect badly with your listeners, but I think it's ah tongue very firmly in cheek. but We'll discuss it as we go. That wasn't meant to be an innuendo either. yeah i I wonder what I would qualify as the most misogynist film that we've watched on the show. I... i
00:03:11
Speaker
I'm sure there's one that would leap out if I had the list in front of me. ah Shallow Hal?
00:03:20
Speaker
Shallow Hal. Shallow Hal. It was Shallow Hal. Now, I had not seen Piranha before. kyle You had this one right at the tip of your tongue. What made you want to watch Piranha 3D with
Kyle's Fascination with Bad Movies
00:03:35
Speaker
us? yeah ah I do watch bad movies a fair bit. And for me, like I've discussed this few before, Chris, but...
00:03:44
Speaker
there's a different type of bad movie. Some movies are earnestly made and they're you know failures and they're hilarious because of it or they're deeply interested because of it. and there's Sometimes people try and make films bad on purpose, something like Sharknado, and they don't always work because of that because they're you know they're too you know're they're reaching for something which they know is there and they're not that interested. I think Prana 3D is sort of bang in the middle of that where you've got a director that knows exactly what he wants and a really well made film, but For the general audience, this is real schlock, right?
00:04:15
Speaker
And what's great for me is watch genre films all the time, have done for decades. I've never seen Joe Dante's Piranha. I certainly didn't watch David Hasselhoff starring Piranha 3DD. haven't seen the joe jo sorry the James Cameron affiliated remake sequel either. So for me, like I'm very much in this Piranha 3D bubble and I don't need to see anything else in the series. It's just wonderfully written schlock from beginning to end.
00:04:42
Speaker
Yeah, sometimes it's best to leave well enough alone. You know what I mean? Like I never bothered with the last two Indiana Jones movies and that's fine. My life is fine. i don't need to do that. You know, you can leave well enough alone in these franchises.
Guilty Pleasures & Viewing Experience
00:04:57
Speaker
Absolutely. i I had not seen this one before, and i I had a total blast for me. Yeah, this does fall into the bad movie rubric of ah guilty pleasure in that it does sort of ah achieve its goals. It's not like it's failing to do what it wants to do, and that's where the pleasure comes from. It's that it's coming from something that is generally considered to be a garbage thing to do. Yeah.
00:05:26
Speaker
Yeah, it achieves its goals, but what are those goals? Yeah, showing you a lot of blood and a lot of tits. And like, yeah, if... You know, like that tweet says, you know, is it not enough for a movie to show you a beautiful face, a hundred feet tall? Like, is it not enough for movie to show you a lot of blood and a lot of tits and like not mess that up? Is that not good enough? like because i so my My girlfriend walked in when I was, she'd seen the movie before many, many years ago. I bought on a cheap DVD and said, come watch this film. It's fun. And then she was out last week. I was feeling under the weather and I said, look, I'm just going to relax at home. You go out. And then I thought, you know what?
00:06:05
Speaker
let's get Piranha 3D rewatched. I've never watched the anaglyph version before. um I have a good Blu-ray player who can play 3D, but I've never had 3D TV and I don't have a projector. So far watch the anaglyph version. That'd be fine. Obviously, it was basically unwatchable. She came back in through the door and thought she could see me. I said, look, don't laugh.
00:06:23
Speaker
No lie. I'm sat there watching Piranha 3D with awful anaglyph glasses and these 3D tits bouncing up and down the screen. the fuck are you doing? I'm like, it's Piranha 3D. Of course, couldn't tell because it was so murky from the sort of blue and red sort of visuals. She put the glasses on and was like, the only things that are 3D are like piranhas and tits. I'm like, you've just described why it's a terribly great movie, right? Yeah.
00:06:52
Speaker
Anna, you had not seen this one before, right? no, no I hadn't. um And i i don't know. I was trying to think about my experiences with 3D movies even.
00:07:07
Speaker
um And i know you know i know I've seen a few, but the one that I wanted to mention, because I did see it on a big screen in 3D, I have seen ah ah Creature from the Black Lagoon.
00:07:22
Speaker
which seems germane. Like it's really, and it's, yeah it's great. It's great. And I think insofar as Piranha 3D has like cinematic influences, which it does, but like it definitely has the influences from, from that movie. That's a ah classic, the bathing beauty and the monster.
00:07:47
Speaker
Well, do you guys want to talk about the the context I found out for Piranha 3D? It wasn't created in a void. Absolutely. Yeah. Very good. All right.
Director & Cinematic Influences
00:08:10
Speaker
I wish had some context about the background of the film. Script director, actors on set. What's going on on screen? I want to hear some details.
00:08:22
Speaker
Gossips can do all that shit. Can't imagine all the time.
00:08:38
Speaker
right, so Piranha 3D came out August 20th, 2010. Perfect end of summer movie. You don't want to go back to school. You want to keep the good vibes going for just a little bit longer.
00:08:50
Speaker
it was directed by ah Alexander Aja. And I've got one, two, three, six taglines. I think it might be... Tagline number one. I think it might be Aja? He's French.
00:09:04
Speaker
He is French, but it's also an adopted name. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, whatever. Who knows? Listeners, if you know, tell somebody. Spread the word.
00:09:15
Speaker
ah Tagline number one. This summer, 3D shows its teeth. Ooh. thought for sure you were going to say 3D shows its tits. Sorry to keep to keep it sort mammary focused, but if for anyone that hasn't seen this film, if you did watched it watch it, you would see why I've got that on the mind. Again, I really want to get across to your listenership that I'm not some raging horndog. My partner is in the house where normal people are.
00:09:48
Speaker
I've got Piranha 3D on the mind, right? It's difficult not to be in that mindset. It's dragging me back to 2010. Well, ah tagline number two is absolutely just to vindicate you.
00:10:00
Speaker
Sea, sex, and blood. Other than the fact that it takes place in freshwater, pretty accurate. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. but I'll take that. That's still good. Number three, there's something in the water.
00:10:15
Speaker
Very original. Yeah. Yeah. yeah ah Yeah, I don't love it. ah Tagline number four, I also don't love. Don't scream, just swim.
00:10:28
Speaker
that's That's terrible. like The marketing guy needs to be thrown into piranha-infested waters for that low low attempt at a tagline. That's crap. Yeah, you don't want to swim. You want to get out of the water.
00:10:42
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. yeah Tagline number five. Two million years of evolution, one perfect killer. There's actually like thousands of them.
00:10:53
Speaker
Yeah. and that then the the living fossil aspect, I feel like was sort of the least interesting aspect it. I don't think anyone's like, yes, two million years old. Now I'm excited. Yeah. yeah yeah Tagline number six.
00:11:11
Speaker
This summer, how fast can you swim? yeah again yeah i think sea sex and blood is yeah yeah yeah how fast can you get out of the water i think would be yeah much more to the point yeah no one really swims away in this film no one really swim no one really swims away they kind of just get swarmed and munched really staying dry is imperative you should be this summer stay as dry as possible Yes.
00:11:41
Speaker
Yeah. This summer don't swim. yeah yeah Much more useful. Stay home. ah So Alexander Aja was born 1978.
00:11:53
Speaker
the son of Algerian French filmmaker, Alexander Arcady. His birthday was Alexander Arcady and his middle initial started with J. So he took his initials and made that his last name. Okay. i didn't realize realize he was a Nepo baby. I've now changed my opinion of his filmography. I've been a fan for decades. Didn't realize he was a Nepo baby. There you go.
00:12:12
Speaker
Very much so. At the age of 19, Aha's father helped him get his first short film, Over the Rainbow, into Cannes. At the age 21, with his father acting as producer, AHA directed his first feature, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi called The Furia.
00:12:32
Speaker
You said you're a fan. Have you seen Furia? Yeah, I've never seen it. I think the first film I've seen in him is Hot Enchant, which obviously we're going to talk about in a moment. Yeah. Yeah. ah Two years later, after his father producing again, he directed his calling card film, Hot Tension, a.k.a. High Tension. It was apparently also released in The UK is Switchblade Romance. We had it as Switchblade Romance. That's when I first um
Extreme Cinema Influence Post-9/11
00:12:56
Speaker
first saw it. But, you know, it can't be a complete philistine. It's R'enchant because, you know, yeah as it's a we're going with a French title, French movie. And it's a good one. It's a deeply flawed film, but certainly an interesting one.
00:13:09
Speaker
Yeah, i remember it it being very impactful at the time. And I think impact was a lot of what horror was going for at that time. Yeah, because you've got these sort of... It's a really influential film because at that sort of time... and so like I know it's not quite tangential and we we're sort of talking about it, but I'm going off one. And it's like... um after sort of tail end of the 90s, the new films in horror certainly were exciting, me and my friends and, you know, and the wider public were, you know, for lack a better term, these torture porn films, but sort of films that sort of bled into extreme cinema. So obviously the new French extremities, as they were called at the time in France,
00:13:44
Speaker
Switchblade Romance, Inside, later that, ah you know, Bais Moir, which is obviously a yeah pornographic thriller film, Irreversible, of course, Gaspar Noir is Irreversible, and other such films. And then I think certainly in terms of Alexandria's Switchblade Romance, you see the influence of that on something like Eden Lake from the UK later and spilling over and into a lot of genre films. um So I think they're kind of...
00:14:11
Speaker
in conjunction you had obviously like James Wan and Saw and Eli Roth with Hadley Fever and later Hostel inspiring, you know, and the French guys inspiring people and suddenly everyone trying to one up and then later on you get stuff like serb Serbian film and and stuff like that.
00:14:27
Speaker
Really, I think the sort of the new millennium, the sort of post 9-11 horror landscape was just extreme internationally, right? And I think that's... There was something in the water, sorry for the pun, but but Piranha's got sort of the extreme sensibilities, but none of the interest in allegorical approaches or anything like that.
00:14:48
Speaker
and And a lot more fun. All that sort of torture porn and new extremity ah was just such a bummer. It was always so miserable to watch.
00:15:00
Speaker
thank god That, I think, was the ultimate purpose of Human Centipede, was to destroy that genre by taking it to its logical end and being like, all right, we're done. We don't need to do this anymore. Anna, had you seen High Tension?
00:15:15
Speaker
um No, I haven't. I don't know that one. Oh, okay. It seemed like it'd be up your alley. Really interesting. i felt I'd i would love to hear your take on it after you see it, because it's deeply flawed, but very interesting.
00:15:30
Speaker
yeah so Yeah, I've seen a couple, like, French New Extremity, or, i don't know, I kind of like the... these These must be like a later wave of something, but your ah your Julia Ducournau or even your Coralie Fargate, although I was not as impressed with the substance as oh yeah a lot of people were.
00:16:00
Speaker
But I do love an icky movie, so... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they they don't skimp on on the blood and sexuality and sexual violence in those films. and it won It will deliver if that's what you're looking for in terms of... That's almost always... Well, I i never liked sexual violence in film. I totally agree. agree.
00:16:24
Speaker
Anyway, anyway, anyway. so ah So one person who did like High Tension very much was Wes Craven. um He liked it so much, in fact, that ah he hired Aha to direct his first American film, the 2006 remake of The Hills Have Eyes.
00:16:40
Speaker
Oh, okay. The first Blu-ray I ever bought. I vividly remember my parents getting a Blu-ray player. They came home with WALL-E. Great choice. Yeah, classic. I went, and if if if this and isn't indicative of me as a person, based on what your listeners have heard me so far, I went into the city and I bought Rocky,
00:17:01
Speaker
which being a combat ah correspondent and a boxing historian is a worthwhile choice. And The Hills Have Eyes, because I'd seen the original Hills Have Eyes, Wes Craven's Hills Have Eyes as a kid. And I didn't actually see this at cinema. This a time where I didn't really have disposable income as a sort of later teenager. You can go to the movies all the time. But I really wanted to see The Hills Have Eyes. So I got that on Blu-ray. And actually think it's one of the rare remakes that's better than the original. I think Wes Craven's movie is... It's quite scuzzy and interesting, but, um you know, he's totally all over the place in his early films. so the Yeah. Last House of Left is the same, right? You've got the city cops and then you've got this horrible, rancid sexual violence and the film's totally all over the shop. The Hills have always a bit like that. And Archer's film is pretty nasty. got some egregious CGI, if i remember correctly. but so And then Hills of Eyes 2 is abysmal on both fronts, whether the West Craven or a sequel to this, because the Hills of Eyes 2 in the 2000s, again, has just got the most egregious scenes of sexual violence. is totally unnecessary. It's totally just, you know, an attempt to be provocative, which fails on all levels. But Archer's movie's pretty fun, pretty nasty, and and pretty cool.
00:18:14
Speaker
Okay. Well, it was certainly a big hit. So Aja filed that up in 2008 with Mirrors, a remake of the Korean horror film Into the Mirror.
Aja's Embrace of Comedy in Piranha 3D
00:18:24
Speaker
Boom, another hit.
00:18:26
Speaker
Yeah. And ah based on that success, he gets hired to remake an oft-overlooked creature feature of the 1970s, Piranha. Now, Aja was the first choice for directing the remake, but he initially didn't want to make something this comedic But when the second choice, Chuck Russell, who had directed Nightmare on Elm Street 3, The Dream Warriors, The Blob, and The Mask fell through, AHA came around.
00:18:55
Speaker
And it's interesting to imagine what the guy who did The Blob and The Mask would have done with this. I think it would have been much more forgettable. Yeah, I mean, I love the remake of The Blob.
00:19:06
Speaker
Oh, that's great. Chuck Russell certainly wasn't doing his best work in the 2000s. But yeah, I read, i can't remember it was in Fangora at the time or so, but I think Chuck Russell was trying to actually you do a more serious piranha.
00:19:19
Speaker
And then I read an interview with Alexandre Arja when he was saying like... um Oh, basically got a screenplay and was like, this isn't the screenplay I read a couple of years back but when I was first doing it and let's make it the spring break movie again. then I think they basically rewrote it. So yeah. i'm Yeah. Sorry if I'm stealing your, ah your notes there, but. um Oh no, no, no, no. And, and, and This is what you want for a Prime movie, right? You want it to be silly, sunny, and and sloppy. That was a terrible choice of word.
00:19:48
Speaker
don't Yeah. we Well, you don't want it to be too neat around the edges. It's got to have a little bit of rough and readiness to it. You don't want it to take itself too seriously. And I think this delivers on that front as well.
00:20:01
Speaker
ah So at this point, production was slated to begin around late 2008, but then it got pushed back to March of 2009 because you want to be a little bit warmer out if a large portion of your movie is based around people in bikinis cavorting in Lake Havasu.
00:20:17
Speaker
ah So once they were able to reschedule that for filming in the summer, things went pretty smooth. They were able to save themselves some trouble by not shooting this in 3D. All the 3D in this was added in post.
00:20:30
Speaker
interesting three d cameras can be yeah it's done well it's done well okay we we watched just the 2d version but you can definitely always tell in a 3d movie like this when they're trying to exploit the medium by having things fly directly at the camera it's always fun i always like that Yeah, at the time you had this, Final Destination 4, if remember correctly, My Bloody Valentine, the remake as well.
00:20:54
Speaker
um And, you know, and obviously back in the 80s we had more, but certainly Friday the 13th, Part 3 would probably the most famous. We got like the eye being held out, this really gimmicky, you know, things aren't conducive to good storytelling, but it's a fairground ride. These kind of movies are fairground rides, right?
00:21:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's like... um Aristotle called spectacle the lowest form of drama, but it's still a form of drama. You know, it's still something. And and this is all blood and tits. It's all spectacle. So making it 3D as well, it all it all appeals on the same level.
00:21:26
Speaker
I think, and also on on a similar level, I think Socrates said that Piranha 3D was the best move movie he ever made. so Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So yeah, they would have shook hands about this one. Like, I mean, absolutely loved it. So, ah so ah yeah, 3d cameras are ah very cumbersome.
Visual Impact & Effects Discussion
00:21:43
Speaker
And at that point they hadn't made one that worked very well underwater. ah So they ended up just shooting in 3d and did the 3d separation and post um another interesting effects note. They allegedly used 80,000 gallons of fake blood or 300,000 liters outside of America.
00:22:00
Speaker
for people outside of america This is the equivalent of about 10 tanker trucks worth. Nice. That to me was incredible.
00:22:11
Speaker
Yeah. ah It's definitely on screen. It's definitely on screen. That's for sure. Yes. They, they dyed that Lake red. It was a lot of blood.
00:22:22
Speaker
um I will, sorry, just, I will say if you can hear a cat meowing in the background, there is a ah cat meowing at me. She's okay.
00:22:33
Speaker
The foster cat is talking to me, I think because I'm in here and I'm talking. So she's talking back me from under the dresser. We'll see if you can lure her out with your beautiful voice, my dove.
00:22:49
Speaker
Yes. ah This was enough blood to intrigue audiences. It made $83 million dollars at the box office on a $24 million dollars budget, a success by any measure.
00:23:01
Speaker
ah Alexander Aha followed Piranha 3D with Horns, that movie where Daniel Radcliffe had devil horns. Oh! Yeah? that's I never saw that one. i really loved that novel.
00:23:16
Speaker
was always interested in it. Yeah, yeah. I never read that one. Well, ah you aren't the only person who didn't see it. It was a total bomb.
Piranha 3D's Success & Sequel
00:23:25
Speaker
Oh. Piranha 3D was followed by Piranha 3DD, which was also a bomb.
00:23:32
Speaker
Yeah, I've never watched that. And it seems like this was sort of after Horns Aha slowly started phasing out of like making American films and then phasing out of English language films. And I think he works mostly in France now again.
00:23:46
Speaker
He made Cruel, which was really good. Okay. was ah app i say Let me rephrase that. Was it really good? No, but it was serviceable. And then he made Never Let Go the other year, which was absolutely abysmal, like a Halle Berry sort of allegorical horror, which whiffed every... Yeah, yeah he's made some French movies in between as well. Cruel crawl is a fine creature feature, but unfortunately, so much nowadays, it's mainly CGI. When what you want is a big animatronic alligator, right? You don't want a crappy CGI, but you know. Plenty of crappy CGI piranha as well, to be fair. What big, wet puppet.
00:24:18
Speaker
yeah Yeah, exactly. That's that's the ideal. yeah Yeah, there were a lot of CGI piranhas in here, but I think it was largely serviceable, and it looked you know at least two tiers better than the CGI piranhas you'd see on like a sci-fi original, it's like in a Jim Wynorski movie. It doesn't look that great. Right, yeah. It's fine. At least a kind of interesting design as well.
00:24:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So other horror reboots, remakes, and sequels of 2010. Just a short list. Nice. You had, just in 2010, you had the remake of Nightmare on Elm Street, the one where they decided to focus on child molesting for some reason.
00:24:58
Speaker
Oh, cool. Topical. Yeah, terrible. Even Kyle Gowner can't save that movie, or Rooney Mara, for that instance. No, it was a truly bizarre decision.
00:25:11
Speaker
uh you also had the wolfman the remake of the wolfman but he said i saw that's all right that's fine break has some effects i think so it's pretty cool oh uh you also had uh the crazies they made a remake of the crazies it's pretty good timothy oliphant that's pretty good that okay if it's got timothy oliphant it can't be all bad uh let me in the remake of let the right one in No, I am watching that shit.
00:25:40
Speaker
I bet if Greg was, Greg's a vampire guy, maybe he would have seen it. Uh, you got the remake of I Spit on Your Grave. Yeah. Oh God. The remake of I Spit on Your Grave. That is an abhorrent movie. That is not good.
00:25:52
Speaker
I would be surprised if it was. It's not good. Uh, and then in terms of sequels, you got Resident Evil Afterlife. Uh,
00:26:04
Speaker
Paranormal Activity 2. That's fine. I'm not a found footage fan. And you also got ah Saw, the final chapter. The one where Saw finally decided to lighten up.
00:26:17
Speaker
Saw final chapter is also 3D. It's also 3D movie.
Divergence to the Saw Franchise
00:26:22
Speaker
um Yeah, that is like tonally not of a piece with the first six movies in the Saw franchise, which are like wonderfully soapy and haves you know have a great...
00:26:32
Speaker
What at the time, that awful sort of desaturated palette, which now is very, you know, is is very much its own thing. But if you watch them, I find with the Saw movies, if you watch them back to back, they're great because it's one story. It's like, it's one story.
00:26:45
Speaker
But are you watch it back to back? I did watch them back to back. I watched the first seven back to back one day. as Seven sticks out like a sore thumb, right? Seven sticks out completely, yeah.
00:26:56
Speaker
Let me tell you, when I got to seven, I was like, thank God. I've spent the last 12 hours in this nightmare realm. yeah Finally, I can see something that's that's fun. I would just watch him emerge every...
00:27:10
Speaker
90 minutes or so looking more and more haggard as the day wore on. It was it was very funny to witness from afar. I was just like, no, thank you.
00:27:22
Speaker
You've got to do it now. You've got to share the pain. Yeah. We'll set one up on the Discord this Halloween. I love the Saw movies. I think they're one of the best modern and franchises. they are you know They have their dog shit moments, but they know exactly what they're doing. and It's true.
00:27:38
Speaker
They're great. um I actually think Saw X is is the best one, which is wild. Interesting. I love that one. I never checked in after those seven. I think I needed to detox. You have not put in the hours. You have not put in another 90 minutes. You cannot say that you have an opinion until you've watched yet another 90 minutes of dirge. You have to get involved.
00:27:58
Speaker
It's true. I'm not a true expert, but I am a true expert on Piranha 3D. Let's hit that plot bumper. Yeah. Woo! Woo!
00:28:22
Speaker
So we open in the Arizona desert.
Key Characters & Opening Chaos
00:28:47
Speaker
so we open in the arizona desert On a lake in a fishing boat, we find Richard Dreyfuss playing a character that is legally distinct from Hooper in Jaws. It is definitely Hooper from Jaws. Yeah.
00:29:01
Speaker
ah Beneath the surface of the lake, there's an earthquake and a giant fissure opens in the lake bed. A whirlpool forms, sucking the tiny fishing boat in. and the rough waters cause Hooper to fall overboard, and swimming up the whirlpool, out from the crack in the lake bottom, is a swarm of hungry piranha who quickly devour him.
00:29:24
Speaker
Our title comes flying out of the screen. Yes! Richard Dreyfuss takes a paycheck. Yes, and he couldn't stay around long enough to get in trouble or piss anybody off. You probably don't want Richard Dreyfuss on your set for more than anything. Absolutely true.
00:29:40
Speaker
So then we cut to spring break on Lake Victoria, Arizona, as played by Lake Havasu. There's Bikini Babes partying everywhere and a lot of contemporary dance music. I've listeners, you know, I like to pull music from the movie for our closing credits this week. We've got Steve Aoki featuring Will.i.am. So get ready for some incredible Will.i.am lyricism.
00:30:05
Speaker
if if If I heard that, I'd be jumping in the water with the piranhas. Yeah. Oh, Well, the spring breakers, they all love it. They're all going wild.
00:30:17
Speaker
ah But luckily, there's wet and wild, actually. Absolutely. But luckily, there's Sheriff Forrester there is played by Elizabeth Shue, and she's there to keep the peace.
00:30:28
Speaker
Oscar nominee Elizabeth Shue to you. Yes. What she nominated for? Leaving Las Vegas. Of course, of course. She was fantastic in it. She's good in this. She's too good for this film. She's too good for this film.
00:30:45
Speaker
It doesn't give her much to do, but she does it all admirably. yeah you know This is truly a thankless role for a woman over 45, but at least Elizabeth Shue, once again, getting a paycheck, a fantastic choice.
00:30:58
Speaker
ah Sheriff Forrester's son, Jake, is a college student living at home, and he runs into Derek Jones as played by Jerry O'Connell. What do you guys think of Jerry O'Connell in this movie? He's having a blast.
00:31:10
Speaker
He's having absolute fucking blast. He's great. Real sleazeball. Yeah, nailed it. Yeah. He's really good.
00:31:22
Speaker
He may be the best thing about the movie, to be fair. He is that good. I think he has the most fun performance for sure.
00:31:32
Speaker
So Derek is a producer of wild, wild girls, and ah he needs a local guide to help him track down the hottest spots to get the footage of the hottest girls.
00:31:45
Speaker
Jake quickly agrees. This seems like a great way to earn a day's pay. Unfortunately, he has already agreed to babysit his younger siblings, Zane and Laura, that day. But he'll figure something out.
00:31:56
Speaker
Zane. I am Zane Forrester. yeah My mom's the sheriff. I play lacrosse.
00:32:08
Speaker
ah That night, ah the sheriff and Deputy Fallon, as played by Ving Rhames, once again punching below waist. It's basically his character from Dawn of the Dead. He's hard-ass cop, Ving Rhames. Yeah.
00:32:23
Speaker
But he doesn't even do that much hard-ass stuff. He's mostly just like a big guy. think at one point he was like, get the fuck out of the water. That's about it. Sorry for that awful attempt at a Ving Rhames impression. that doesn't count as cultural appropriation. Maybe you should kick me off the show immediately. It's all right. I i think we we can run cover for you.
00:32:41
Speaker
That's Ving Rhames. ah So ah they go out looking for the missing Richard Dreyfuss. Fallon also tells the sheriff that there should be some scientists coming out tomorrow to investigate the quake that happened earlier today.
00:32:57
Speaker
They then find Hooper's boat floating in the reeds and Hooper's stripped corpse soon after. Gross. No, it's very gross. it's correct There's a lot of gross, wet, meaty skeletons. Like you definitely, they do some damage to bodies in this.
00:33:15
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of of sort of just meat. Yeah. The meat budget, I'm sure, was huge. ah Sheriff wants to shut down the lake because the floating corpse is looking pretty jacked up.
00:33:29
Speaker
ah But she knows that this will destroy the local economy. Classic disaster movie stuff. We saw this in our episode about Volcano a couple months ago. Dante's Peak. Dante's Peak. For me, it was about Volcano.
00:33:47
Speaker
It is much more similar to Dante's peak than volcano. It's got your bed, your bed, yours too. Right. Yeah. And, and your tornado, it has a lot in common with a disaster movie more than horror movie. I want to say structurally to me, but also I'm not a big creature feature guy.
00:34:05
Speaker
ah Anyway. So the next day, ah the sheriff leaves Jake in charge of Zane and Laura, and he pays them 60 bucks to take care of themselves.
00:34:17
Speaker
Sheriff Forrester meets up with the team of geologists led by Novak, as played by Adam Scott. Once again, another ringer given very little to do, but comports himself admirably.
00:34:28
Speaker
They hop aboard Novak's boat and they sail out to the epicenter of the quake.
00:34:35
Speaker
Meanwhile, Jake runs into his high school crush, Kelly, who's hanging out near Derek's boat. When Derek sees what a hottie Kelly is, he conscripts her for the shoot.
00:34:48
Speaker
They all hop aboard his boat, the Barracuda.
00:34:53
Speaker
Derek's boat a crew, sorry, Derek's boat crew slash film crew is now composed of Derek, the director, Jake, the location scout.
00:35:05
Speaker
Kelly, the newest wild, wild girl. Danny, the English wild, wild girl, who is nice and is apparently your lad mag gal. Yeah, she was really... So basically, like in the UK at the time, this film got pressed because Kelly Brooke was like probably the most famous poster pin-up at the time. Oh, okay. was really famous. She was like, um you know, probably the number one sought after sort thing. Certainly not for me. I'd be more into Jake's love interest, Jessica. That's probably more my sort of thing. If that was the Kelly, sorry. jet Kelly played by yeah Jessica. so I will never pit two queens against one another. They were both beautiful women.
00:35:46
Speaker
They're both great. I'm just saying, like, you know, horses, of course, it's my sort of thing. Whatever floats your boat is probably a better, you know, idiom for this ah episode. But K-Brite was really, really popular at the time. And um it was stunt-casting in the sort of way that...
00:36:02
Speaker
I guess Paris Hilton was for House of Wax too, where you've got this very famous non-actor being brought in as sort cannon fodder for a horror movie and sort of marked out to me and my friends as like, yeah, this probably isn't the kind of movie kind of movie you want to go see at at the cinema because even though we love genre pictures, we're also like sort of,
00:36:20
Speaker
ah So it's 2010. I'm like 22 years old. I'm very much watching Tarkovsky movies as well as horror movies at this point. I'm certainly not going to go and watch a movie that's got Kelly Brook in. It was like a in the UK at the time on on the newspapers, you have something called page three model. So page one is your headlines. Page two is like politics. Page three is tits.
00:36:39
Speaker
She was constantly featured on the tip page. Certainly wasn't seen as ah as a legit screen presence, which is crazy because she's really good in this. I think like she yeah she's really good. Yeah, not giving a lot to do, but does everything else of her very well. really competent. She is the, as we were saying in Britain, excuse the phrase, but a tart with a heart. She's got big boobs, but she's got a big heart too. And she looks after Jake. She's kind of like, she's kind of sexy, but almost like a big sister figure to him. She's kind looking out for him. And... Yeah, she's really good. But at the time you had these lads mags and they were ubiquitous on every office table or every school classroom. And they were just mainly pop culture news, jokes and titties. And she was everywhere at that point. So, yeah, stunt casting definitely worked because it got mainstream press in the UK because of that.
00:37:28
Speaker
Yeah, i bet. Yeah. Help them sell a couple more tickets. God bless. And once again, yeah, she did not do a bad job. She's good. But also on the boat, you had Crystal, the wild, wild girl who had no particular personality.
00:37:40
Speaker
And Andrew, the cameraman played by Paul Scheer. Paul Scheer, of course, known ah for on the comedy podcast. How did this get made? Yeah, and he's in the TV show The League, which is a comedy show about fantasy football, which I watch. So yeah, that's good too.
00:37:56
Speaker
He's June Diane Raphael's husband, I believe. Yes, that as well. ah So, but yeah, Paul Scheer, I know you keep an eye on the competition in terms of bad movie comedy podcasts.
00:38:13
Speaker
We're calling you out, coming on the show. ah Back at home. Zane and Laura, they take a canoe out on the lake and soon get trapped on a small island or sandbar or something like that.
Stranded Siblings & Piranha Discovery
00:38:25
Speaker
Just like immediately. Immediately. However, I can't really blame them. Their big brother basically said, here's some money, stay at home. No kids are going to do it. The worst sort babysitter ever. they They're about like eight. It's not like they're 12 14.
00:38:39
Speaker
No one's going to leave their kids alone at eight years old. he's he's ah He's a kind of good kid, Jake. He means well, but he makes fucking dumb decisions throughout the entirety of the movie. I think he's actually played by Steve McQueen's grandson.
00:38:52
Speaker
That's true. Oh, really? Are they related? He has none of Steve McQueen's presence. has none of Steve McQueen's grizzled presence. Bless him. He does not have that quiet cool at all.
00:39:05
Speaker
He is beamed from like one of the director video American Pie sequels. That's what this kid feels like. He's the good guy in one of those movies. He's certainly not um leading man material.
00:39:17
Speaker
ah So ah back on our seismologist boat, our two red shirt seismologists, Sam and Paula, don diving gear and explore the new cave that opened up under Lake Victoria during the quake.
00:39:29
Speaker
It turns out that there's an underground lake down there and it's also full of deadly piranha. Sam and Paula quickly get eaten before they can even notify the boat what's going on. But when Novak reels their safety line back in, all he gets is Paula's corpse with one piranha still munching on it.
00:39:47
Speaker
They did manage to capture a single piranha. So they take it to their friendly local fish store owner slash retired ichthyologist, Carl Goodman, played by Christopher Lloyd. Once again, punching below his weight, doing great.
00:40:04
Speaker
And he tells them that this is a living fossil, a species of piranha thought to be extinct, most likely living as cannibals in the enclosed cave for millions of years. Very luckily, he has a fossil example on him.
00:40:18
Speaker
He has a full piranha fossil to say, this is the species, it's back. and it's like They must be endemic to the region. Yeah, yeah. And there's this honestly... Very coincidental.
00:40:30
Speaker
I don't know. I really love the shot where you see the fossil and the live fish swims out from behind the fossil like the fossil is moving. And I'm like, now that's cinema.
00:40:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's stylish right now. i love that. That is good. And, you know, obviously if you had to like do more research to get the fossil, you're not going to get this in at a slim 88 minutes. This is all smart storytelling. This is not movie that you want buy us a long time. It absolutely rips this film, right? Everything is just really quick and and and rips along.
00:41:02
Speaker
So all this time, Jake and Kelly have been on Derek's boat. They pull into a remote cove and Danny and Crystal do a little skinny dipping, which Derek and Andrew film through the boat's glass bottom while making crude jokes about how they would fuck fish if fish had boobies like that. And...
00:41:20
Speaker
and This is great because you get to sort of have your cake and eat it too. You get to both enjoy the cinematic experience of watching nude women skinny dipping underwater beautifully, but also you get to like make fun of people who would be into that. You you know what I mean? you knowing It's knowing winking kind of, yeah. It's... um say It's somewhat misogynist, but also it's it's sort of poking fun at that too, right? Because so Derek is the figure of fun. He's not a hero. He's he he's a complete prick.
00:41:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's that it's riding the edge between being misogynistic and being about misogyny. Yeah, yeah. And it's not writing it very skillfully, but it is it does know that those two modes exist.
00:42:12
Speaker
And it is so it is aware that like you know a lot of its male characters are just absolute scuzzballs. um But at the same time, it's showing you all the things that those scuzzballs enjoy for you to enjoy. so Yeah. And I think operating on those more than one level at once is one of the things that makes Farana 3D a success. It does make it a more engaging film, you know, to, to think about and watch.
00:42:43
Speaker
Uh, so later they do body shots of tequila. See, see what I'm saying about it being intellectual. Uh, they do body shots of tequila. Exactly. Then Kelly throws up directly onto the camera and you get her vomit flying out towards you in the audience. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe take that bit back about it being and intellectual. That's actually quite gross. on Again, we talk about sexual violence. I'm not really big on vomit scenes either.
00:43:10
Speaker
That's understandable. No. They say three d with the anaglyph glasses, as I had last week, was ah it was quite intrusive. I felt fairly violated. Well, luckily it's over quickly.
00:43:23
Speaker
And then we get back to Derek snorting a lot of coke and being really hostile to everybody. The vibes on the party boat are quickly getting worse. And that's when Jake spies his younger siblings trying to flag down help.
00:43:36
Speaker
He begs Derek to pick them up. and Yeah, it's really funny just to see them like on the shore waving their little arms. Thankfully, they did not try to swim home and get eaten by piranha.
00:43:47
Speaker
ah But he begs Derek to pick them up, and once Jake mentions that his mom is the sheriff, Derek agrees. Unfortunately, while pulling away from the island, their boat gets its propeller trapped in some plants.
00:44:02
Speaker
A common danger for lake boats.
Spring Break Chaos & Piranha Attack
00:44:06
Speaker
Back at the sheriff. She, along with her deputies and Novak, they are desperately trying to get the Spring Breakers to stop swimming, but no one is listening. They love swimming so much.
00:44:19
Speaker
And it's too late. The Piranhas attack the Spring Breakers. This is the moment we've been waiting for. All hell is breaking loose. The lake turns red with blood. Boats capsize as panicked, partially devoured party goers try to climb their way ah on board. A wet t-shirt contest MC played by Eli Roth gets decapitated by a runaway boat.
00:44:44
Speaker
This is like the real centerpiece of the film. So many great moments. What are some of your favorite moments from this fantastic, like, montage? The girl getting her face ripped off by the propellers. Yes, that was definitely worth a shout out. Yeah. um The girl shooting piranhas in water. That was fun.
00:45:05
Speaker
now The gal who gets, ah her torso gets cut in half in the classic delayed reaction, you know, where she starts sliding. But also, in being cut in half, her bikini strap gets cut. So you can also see one of her tits while all this is happening.
00:45:27
Speaker
Yes, and she yeah it's like the classic ah anime sword fighter getting cut in half. Yeah, yeah. yeah ah yeah The carnage is like the hour mark, and then it's just pure carnage all the way, right? it's it's As sort of massacre scenes go, it's really full on. It's there some CG, but there's some practical effects too, which obviously make up for it. The CG was pretty ubiquitous at this stage, right? um and So you're going to see some of it, but it's just really inv inventive and loads loads of splatter and and some good gags, some good gore gags.
00:46:01
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going to say, yeah, if you are a gore fan, this sequence 100 delivers on gore and that's why yeah i think this falls into that guilty pleasure rubric because it it does deliver it is good at what it's trying to do but what it's trying to do is show you like ah just a shit ton of blood oh so back at the ss barracuda it's still stuck But Derek, he takes the reins and he really opens up the throttle, which does let them tear free, but also hurdles them directly into some rocks. Womp womp.
00:46:37
Speaker
Yeah. This is why you don't let the coked out freak drive the boat. The crash throws Derek and Crystal into the lake and busts open the glass bottom boat.
00:46:47
Speaker
I think something happened to Andrew at some point, but I'm not sure when. ah Does anybody know what happened to Andrew? don't know. I don't remember what happened to Andrew. Paul Shearer seems to disappear in this movie. I'm not actually sure. don't remember him getting killed. he certainly doesn't escape either.
00:47:05
Speaker
Maybe he had a death scene that just ah got cut. Maybe it was too intense. I can't imagine anything much more intense than what they've got. Yeah, it's only like 85, 88 minutes this film. You could definitely could have fit in another 30 seconds.
00:47:19
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Poor guy. of Well, then Paul Scheer, I know you're still listening. Come on and tell us what happened to your character in Piranha 3D. I believe Kelly is now miraculously sober as well. She was spewing her ring up like 10 minutes before. She was so drunk. She's been fully sobered up by these wave of piranha attacks. She's good to go.
00:47:40
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that'll that adrenaline will get pumping. ah Crystal, she gets thoroughly devoured. a piranha comes up out through her mouth. They have devoured her from the inside out.
00:47:52
Speaker
Fantastic stuff. And then ah Derek, he's getting eaten, but he gets dragged aboard by Danny. It turns out he's only been eaten below the waist, but he mutters repeatedly to Jake, They took my penis! They took my penis!
00:48:09
Speaker
Great stuff. You love to see a bad thing happen to Derek. oh Jake is more concerned with Kelly, who is trapped in the ship's belly, which is rapidly flooding.
00:48:23
Speaker
Jake decides he doesn't care if he gets in trouble anymore. It's time to call his mom. So he grabs his phone and he tells her the long short of it, that being that their boat is sinking.
00:48:35
Speaker
And at that moment, we get Aja's take on the classic Brody Dolly Zoom from Jaws. You know, a great moment, perhaps not executed as well, but still a great reference and always a great little trick. Yeah. ah So the sheriff and Novak, they race out the rescue. Novak, as a seismologist, really going above and beyond, I want to say. A real public servant.
00:49:02
Speaker
A real ah Dr. Dante Peake type. Absolutely. yeah Adam Scott has no, like none of his usual, like even he plays a shit heel, funny guy really well. And he plays a regular funny guy very well. And this he's very serious. He's like sort of Nathan Drake ish, right? He's kind of like a, the hero, you know, and he's, uh, yeah, he's not, he's not great. I don't remember any funny lines whatsoever. this No, he plays it very straight and the script is very straight with it.
00:49:27
Speaker
Hmm. ah So the sheriff and Novak... Yeah, no, it's it's interesting. Once again, just not given very much to do. The actors all just sort of need to deliver their lines effectively in the movie.
00:49:41
Speaker
I mean, Adam Scott's character does... I'm sorry, Adam Scott's character does get on a jet ski and start shooting at Piranha, which I think is pretty funny. That was another Raymulder.
00:49:52
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. yeah He does it well. So the sheriff and Novak, they race to the rescue. They can't get too close to the Barracuda in their boat because of the rocks. So they toss a rope over there and the sheriff shimmies across, you know, keeping herself up above the water.
00:50:11
Speaker
Unfortunately, Kelly is still trapped below deck and Jake isn't leaving without her. So Danny and the sheriff, they shepherd the little kids across the rope back to the other boat. But unfortunately, this proves to be too much weight. They probably shouldn't have all been on the rope at the same time.
00:50:27
Speaker
And the rope dips low enough that the piranhas leap out of the water and start eating Danny. all this commotion it makes yeah r.i.p danny it's pretty vicious as well she didn't deserve to die like she's getting like bits like chunks taken off of her before she eventually goes you think oh she may survive with a flesh wound maybe she'll lose an ass cheek she can come back from that she loses a bit of a a bit of a kidney and if you oh no here we go now it's going to get worse and then you know merciful death but she didn't really deserve to die she's a totally blameless character for throughout the entirety of the film even though at this time like if you're a sex worker in a 2010 comedy movie you're basically scum she is that this is what those movies were like she's a really you nice sweet character and she tries to look after and
00:51:15
Speaker
Jake, the kid who's like, even though he makes bad decisions, he see he's inherently a good, a decent kid, right? And yeah and and she gets munched for it. You know, it's just not really fair. Justice for Danny, I think.
00:51:26
Speaker
Well, you know, and it's always a part of a horror movie to see ah how they progress through how much characters deserve to die and whether or not they do. And, you know... And definitely at some point you have to start killing off likable characters so that it starts having an impact. You can't just only kill the assholes or you can, but it' you know, it's a different movie.
00:51:46
Speaker
But anyway, eventually ah the kids are able to make it across the other boat along with the sheriff, but the rope is now too insecure for the sheriff to make it back to the Barracuda. Luckily, Jake has a plan.
00:51:59
Speaker
He tosses the half-dead Derek down into the water as chum for the piranhas. Effectively killing him. This is the funniest bit the movie, by the way. like When he picks him up and he's got those little like stick legs. Yes. His bony legs are great. It's great practical effect. That's really good.
00:52:15
Speaker
Yeah. So the piranhas are distracted and this allows him to swim down into the cabin with the rope tied around his waist.
Climactic Rescue & Cliffhanger Ending
00:52:24
Speaker
And then he grabs Kelly, opens up a couple of propane tanks while he's down there. Jury rigs a fuse with a magnesium flare and gives the signal to his mom or no back to start the boat, towing them out of there like a pair of water skiers, you know, that sort of situation.
00:52:43
Speaker
And after a couple of false starts of the engine, It all works out. They escape just in time and the boat explodes. Kelly and Jake get yanked out of the danger zone just before the propane tanks blow up the Barracuda.
00:52:57
Speaker
The shock wave from the explosion kills all the piranha in the surrounding waters as a sort of bootleg dynamite fishing. Sheriff Forrester radios in home base that she thinks she has a plan that could clear all the piranha out of the lake and presumably also kill every other fish in the lake. But I guess that's another problem. You know, you can only climb one down at a time.
00:53:22
Speaker
Unfortunately, Christopher Lloyd, the fish expert, is on the other end of the line, and he says that the piranha he saw earlier was just a baby. Novak wonders aloud what the adults might look like before one of the adults leaps out of the water, biting him right as we cut to black and the credits roll.
00:53:40
Speaker
The end. It's a fun stinger. Yeah. Yeah. And then obviously it sets up for Piranha 3DD. It all makes sense. Yeah. It's like, you know, Citizen Kane, The Godfather Part 2, Piranha 3D. Because, you know, it's just this perfectly taught, well-written piece of cinema. And yeah, it' it's an absolute banger from start to finish. You know, everything you want in a movie, right?
00:54:10
Speaker
Yeah. and And very smart to end that way because it could easily have worn out its welcome. This is just a good like pop. And then you're out, you know, you're driving over to the theater before you even know it. It's fantastic.
00:54:23
Speaker
Final thoughts, five star ratings. Anna, where did you land in terms of watchability and weirdness of Piranha 3D? Ah, well, I had a great time.
00:54:35
Speaker
I would give this a watchability of about four, I think. It's great. It's got great gore and some like funny gore for gore fans. um It's got... you know i'm a I'm a big fan of... ah of horror nudity.
00:55:00
Speaker
um and this has a lot of a lot of great, yeah, a lot of great horror nudity, which is a concept that I'm not going to like define right now, but I think we all know what it is. You know, it when you see it. Yeah. And as for weirdness, um honestly, more like a one, i think it's a pretty straightforward, like spring break creature feature.
00:55:28
Speaker
Mm-hmm. That all makes sense. I landed pretty similarly to you. I gave it a four for watchability. Lots of boobs, lots of blood, clocks in under 90 minutes. What more could you ask for on a Saturday night?
00:55:40
Speaker
It's a film of simple pleasures, you know? For weirdness, I gave it a two. It does sort of structurally, like I said, ah feel more especially like an especially gory disaster movie than a horror movie.
00:55:55
Speaker
But it does offer just an obscene level of excess. I think that excess is a little bit strange, or at the very least unusual. But I would say, as an experience, it's pretty much straightforward.
00:56:06
Speaker
You know, you're not going to walk out of this with your noodle totally baked. You're going to walk out having had a good time. Kyle, what do you think? Watchability and weirdness out of five stars, where'd you land?
00:56:18
Speaker
Yeah, watchability for me is a five. It's less than 90 minutes. It absolutely rips along. you know I love a good creature feature. I'm going to put this alongside something like yeah the Chuck Russell remake of The Blob or something like that. not that good, but it's certainly not a great practical effect. It's kind of small-town... horror that absolutely is you tears along archetypes but well executed archetypes is the exposition is is action based for the most part rather than dialogue based you see you know you see a sheriff you know not put up with any shit from these young spring breakers and she does it with action she tells him me shut the fuck up and arrests them rather than excuse me i'm the sheriff and i am the know mean it's She's just more action-based. It's smart, whip smart for that reason. Weirdness, it's not that weird. um Certainly like films that I consider weird would be things like Men Behind the Sun or Todd Browning's Freaks or any number of Takashi BK movies. or you know Those movies are very, very strange and and off-kilter. But yeah, excess, in terms of excess, yeah, maybe two out of five is fine because there's a lot of gratuitous nudity and a lot of extreme bloodletting.
00:57:28
Speaker
That for a general audience, maybe if they were going to see a genre movie and it was like a conjuring movie or something like that, that's what would be a general audience kind of horror movie. Yeah. They consider that a little bit straight. They'd come out and be like, what the fuck was that we just watched? You know what I mean? Much the same as they did when they left. Long Legs, for instance, is a little bit uncanny, but it's not exactly... Yeah, for someone who, you know, we spoke about the new French extremity movies earlier on.
00:57:56
Speaker
Alexandre Arge has definitely got weirder movies than this in in his pantheon. But yeah, it's not, um it's straightforward in terms of narrative beats, but certainly a little bit odd just because it's just so like, why the fuck were you making this in 2010, right? i it's It is that is he's such a weird year yeah for it. Yeah, yeah. It feels tonally like the sort of early 2000s gross out sex comedies, but with like this kind of, you know, this full wave of, if not torture porn, but certainly like, you know, the the skin and that being ripped off and people being scalped and you can see it's sort of bedfellows of that as well. It's such a bizarre mix. Yeah. I mean, you don't, you don't cast Eli Roth in your movie.
00:58:39
Speaker
in In this movie, if you're not referencing, you know... Yeah. Hostel or whatever, yeah. having for or Yeah. yeah Whatever it is he did. Yeah.
00:58:51
Speaker
Yeah. Well, another filmmaker that this film highly references is, of course, Joe Francis. We're going to be talking a little bit about Joe Francis as we go off on a tangent. Okay. Okay.
00:59:10
Speaker
Sure, the movie's the main event. But that's not the case with this segment. No need to be sad lament.
00:59:23
Speaker
Cause we're going on a tangent.
00:59:29
Speaker
Yeah, that's the name of this segment.
00:59:57
Speaker
so Jerry O'Connell's character Derek Jones was inspired by Joe Francis the creator of Girls Gone Wild
01:00:06
Speaker
girls gone wild for those aren't familiar, uh, was long running series of what I'm going to call soft core pornographic documentaries. Uh, Joe Francis and his crew would go to places like, uh, you know, spring break in different cities or Mardi Gras. And, ah they'd be hoping to find a lot of intoxicated college age women and convince them to flash the camera or make out with each other. That sort of thing.
01:00:37
Speaker
Uh, it somehow winds up being more exploitative than most traditional pornography, even without any penetrative sex, because a lot of them were too drunk to give informed consent on this kind of stuff. It's generally just got a very gross vibe.
01:00:53
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, The first girls gone wild video came out in 1999 and they made over 250 of them before the last one came out in 2013. There were titles like girls gone wild, the hottest Texas coeds or girls gone wild, wet and willing volume eight or girls gone wild. my eighteenth birthday.
01:01:23
Speaker
ah Girls Gone Wild broke, yeah, just bad vibes. ah Girls Gone Wild broke new ground for advertising and distribution for porno. They would air half-hour infomercials on late-night TV that essentially edited down and censored highlight reels.
01:01:43
Speaker
ah And it would also be advertised as a subscription service where they would send you new videos every month. You give them your credit card.
01:01:54
Speaker
Yeah. It was like Columbia house.
01:01:58
Speaker
Girls gone wild was sued pretty early on for not making it clear enough that they were setting up their customers with an ongoing subscription instead of sending them individual pornos. Oh, sued for that? Okay, that's not where was expecting that sentence to I thought for sure you were going to say it's because women didn't realize they were being filmed or something like that. Oh, don't worry. That also happened. Repeatedly.
01:02:22
Speaker
ah That pretty much ended up sinking it as a profitable business model. The proliferation of internet access around this time also meant that potential customers had ready access to real pornography made by willing participants. And so both their content and their distribution model rapidly lost out to the competition.
01:02:43
Speaker
ah By 2013, Girls Gone Wild filed for bankruptcy. Oh, no. Bless him. I know. i think they were bought by Bang Bus, if I remember correctly, who probably mostly just wanted the name.
01:02:59
Speaker
ah Francis was eventually charged with a ton of different crimes, including racketeering, assault, false imprisonment, tax evasion and prostitution.
01:03:12
Speaker
He also racked up considerable gambling debts and legal debts to the Wynn Las Vegas hotel. He consequently fled to Mexico where he hopefully has had a shitty life ever since.
01:03:25
Speaker
I would have thought he was to be running, running for president, but maybe that's, ah well, 2028 is just around the corner. Yeah. Living in exile. Yeah. Good. Yeah. A, uh, tax and gambling debt exile.
01:03:41
Speaker
Well, Speaking of money, though, do you guys want to play a little game? was Sure. All right, we're going play the profit game.
01:04:12
Speaker
You can make a movie with a lot of wit, but it doesn't matter if it doesn't turn profit. They want profits.
01:04:22
Speaker
A whole lot of profits.
01:04:26
Speaker
This film better turn a profit.
01:04:37
Speaker
All right, we're gonna to be talking about the profitability of 21st century remakes 20th century horror movies. Oh. to I'm going to give you a title and a year, a brief description, and the original budget of the film.
01:04:54
Speaker
I want you to tell me what you think it took in at the international box office. Whoever gets its closest will get the point. Everybody ready? Yes. Absolutely. Good luck.
01:05:06
Speaker
No one ever does that. What a gentleman. don't Question number one, House of Wax, 2005. In this remake of the 1953 film of the same name, a group of teens fight to survive the night in an abandoned wax museum.
01:05:21
Speaker
It had a budget of $40 million. dollars How much do you think House of Wax took in at the international box office? Anna, why you start? $113 million. $113 million? Yes. hundred and thirteen million yes All right. What about you, Kyle? you know what? That's probably similar to I was going to do. i remember it being viral because they the T-shirts that said Paris gets killed or whatever. That was like the big marketing thing. like You hate this woman for playing a role in a reality TV show. Now you get to see her suffer. um As to not be too close in the same ballpark and try and crib off your great guests, I'm going to say 101. 101.
01:05:58
Speaker
ah hundred and one All right. Kyle gets the point. It was 70 million. You both overshot. That was not a big success. Wow. i I would have thought we made it.
01:06:09
Speaker
Star power of Jared Padalecki didn't take it over. Mm-hmm. No, not even the beautiful scenery of Australia's Gold Coast. Well, we watched it. this is going to blow your mind.
01:06:21
Speaker
We watched it. We went away on vacation, and I bought some cheap-ass DVDs because I knew that the Airbnb we were staying at had DVD player. I thought, you know, after a day we could watch the movies. And the two DVDs I took were Piranha 3D and Hell's Black, the remake.
01:06:37
Speaker
All right. And for me, it was all about Alicia Kufber. And for my partner, it was all about, ah God, who's the guy that's in it from One Tree Hill? What's his name?
01:06:48
Speaker
Come I don't know. I know Jared Padalecki was in Jared Padalecki's the guy because his face ripped off in it. Well, I think he's at a piano. And the other guy is cool because I can't get this wrong. What's his name? It's Chad Michael Murray.
01:06:59
Speaker
Ah, okay. yeah So yeah, I think she preferred that one to Piranha 3D. Interesting. Question number two. The Fog, also 2005. Oh, God, this is bad.
01:07:13
Speaker
One foggy night, a small coastal town is ravaged by vengeful spirits in this remake of John Carpenter's of The Fog, 1980. It had a budget of $18 million.
01:07:25
Speaker
Anna, what did think it $11 million. million Okay. What about you, Carl? I also don't think it turned a profit. This is legitimately one of the worst films I've ever seen. It's got the guy from Smallville in it. Yeah. um It was really bad.
01:07:41
Speaker
So how much you say it cost? 18 million? Mm-hmm. I'm going to go with like, just trying to think. like More people did go to the movies back then. I think Anna's guess is really good.
01:07:53
Speaker
Okay, let's go the other way. Okay, it made 18.5 million. It made $46.2 million. That one turned a profit. People were hungry for this content back then. It's such a criminal remake. The Fog is one of the my favorite John Carpenter movies. And the remake dismal.
01:08:12
Speaker
Terrible effort from all involved. Question number three. Fright Night, 2011. teen is convinced his next door neighbor is actually a vampire in this remake of the 1985 film. It had a budget of $30 million. dollars What do you think, Anna?
01:08:29
Speaker
Oh, well, I know some of that money was from We Went to See This Together. i enjoyed it. Colin Farrell, very attractive. um Absolutely. what did Sorry. to How much did it cost?
01:08:43
Speaker
It cost $30 million. Oh, okay. I'm going to say $40 million. Okay. How about you, Kyle? I'm going to guess. I don't know why. Somewhere my Rain Man brain is plucking this number out, but I'm going say like $86 million.
01:08:58
Speaker
That one was $41 million. And I almost got that one right on the dot. Wow. I thought that was a bigger success. I remember it being quite well regarded. I really liked that movie. I think people liked it. Do you know what? Is it as good as the original? I think it's probably about on par. I think they're really good their own ways. It's set in Vegas, the remake, right? Yeah. It's pretty good.
01:09:17
Speaker
I think it was more that a lot of these horror remakes are remaking something that had a bigger cultural cache. Like I think Fright Night, the original was not as big. And so that's, yeah, I just put a full of Colin Farrell was the biggest star at the time. and then again, he was also in the ah total recall remake. Yeah. Yeah.
01:09:36
Speaker
Uh, question number five. Oh, sorry. Number four prom night, 2008. In this remake of the 1980 original, an escaped convict attacks a senior prom.
01:09:47
Speaker
Budget of $20 million. dollars Anna, what do you think?
01:09:52
Speaker
Uh, 52. Okay. What about you, Kyle? I'm going the other way this time. i don't think Prom Night had much cachet with people. I'm going to say it made like $12 million.
01:10:04
Speaker
That one made 57.2. once again, very close. You were seeing this movie. Wild. That's a fucking bad movie. That's a great guess. Well done. That's such a great guess. Yeah, I'm surprised myself. I didn't know this remake existed.
01:10:20
Speaker
I think it's also just a great title for a horror movie. Like, you're a teen, i obviously won That That wouldn't necessarily have, again, the same sort of cultural cachet here. Like, problems weren't a thing by that point, but there's still like they' they're more of a big deal here now.
01:10:36
Speaker
Got it. Question number five. Willard, 2003. two thousand and three God, the Crispin Glover movie. That's topical at the moment. Yeah, he's back, unfortunately. A young man befriends a bunch of rats and uses them to kill his enemies in this remake of 1971's Willard.
01:10:54
Speaker
Had a budget of $20 million. What
01:10:58
Speaker
and what do you think, Anna? $25 million. All right. What about you, Kyle? I'm going to say it made like $500,000 at the box office. can't imagine this was a big theatrical hit.
01:11:10
Speaker
Well, you were closer, Kyle. It made $8.6 million. It did not make money. I'm surprised. People did see a lot more movies back then. that is true. That is true.
01:11:23
Speaker
ah Question number six. A Nightmare on Elm Street, 2010. Absolute dog shit. Yes. ah Teens are stalked in their dreams by the ghost of a murdered child molester in this remake of Wes Craven's 1984 classic with a budget of $35 million. dollars
01:11:43
Speaker
$17 million. Okay, you think this one lost, but... What about you, Kyle? I'm going for like $147 million. Kyle gets it It was
01:11:57
Speaker
Wow. I think we're don't know we're tired, but it's, it's a good, it's a good clean game. Yeah. Question number seven, Halloween, 2007, the 2007 Halloween.
01:12:11
Speaker
Michael Myers escapes from an insane asylum and kills a bunch of people in this grimy remake of the 1978 film budget $15 million. dollars How do you get grimier than Halloween?
01:12:25
Speaker
Um, Sorry, what was it the bunch of... Oh, you hire Rob Zombie. this is rob Yeah, unfortunately you get sexual assault. Yeah, that's that's the problem with this movie yeah again. What do you think, my dev? 150 million.
01:12:44
Speaker
Okay. What about you, Kyle? I think that's a great guess. I think less people would have went to see this than Nightmare on Street, but I don't know why. I'll say... We're going be close. I'll say 135.
01:12:59
Speaker
Kyle gets it. It was 80.4. Wow. I'm actually shocked by that. i would have thought it definitely broke 100 mil. But it was very, 15 million is our lowest budget that we have out of all of these. Yes, it was profit. Even lower budget than Willard.
01:13:13
Speaker
ah Question number eight. Last house on the left, 2009.
01:13:20
Speaker
Parents get revenge for the rape of their daughter in this remake of the 1972 Wes Craven movie, which was in and of itself a remake of the 1960 Ingmar Bergman film, The Virgin Springs. This one had a budget of $15 million. dollars
01:13:36
Speaker
What do you think, Anna? Ugh. $14 million. fourteen million 14, all right. How about you, Kyle? Yeah. what what So what was the budget again? 15 million? Mm-hmm. I'll go with 21.
01:13:53
Speaker
Kyle gets it. It was 46 million. Who the fuck was seeing a remake of Last House on the Left? Yeah. It's gross. Yeah, there's no need.
01:14:02
Speaker
All right, last one. The Wicker Man. Oh God, the bees. The bees, they won't bring your bees back. Have you covered the Wicker Man on your pod? you Have you done it No one's selected it yet, but I'm sure we will someday.
01:14:18
Speaker
A police officer looking for a missing girl in a small island village that harbors a spooky secret in this gonzo remake of the 1973 folk horror classic.
01:14:29
Speaker
This one had a budget of $40 million. dollars What do you think, Anna? um 70 million? Okay. How about you, Kyle? I can't imagine this town of profit. It was much maligned at the time. um so I'm going to go for still Nick Cage at this time. so Ghost Rider, he was still pretty popular.
01:14:51
Speaker
Sorry, Anna, what was your guess? 70. Okay, I'll go 50. Kyle gets it again. This one lost money. was 38.8. Wow.
01:15:01
Speaker
wow They tried and they failed with Neil LaButte's Wicker Man. Congratulations. Kyle, you are our big winner. Get zoo.
01:15:17
Speaker
Congratulations. That was great fun. Well, thank you for spirit. Thank you for spirited competition. That was that was great fun. Oh, it's the Batty Awards.
01:15:33
Speaker
Now you're messing with the Batty Awards. Now you're messing with the Batty Awards. Now you're messing with the Batty Awards.
01:15:44
Speaker
Now you're messing with the Batty Awards.
01:15:50
Speaker
Congratulations to all the nominees.
Awards & Recommendations
01:15:58
Speaker
That's right. Congratulations to all our nominees. It's the Batty Awards. Anna, hit us with your Batty Award. All right. i I have two, but that's because one of them is a book recommendation, so it's like outside the movie. But the first one i am going to give to the actor playing Jake, Sam.
01:16:20
Speaker
Stephen R. McQueen. ah Kyle, I had no idea until you said it that he's actually related to Steve McQueen. I just assumed it was a coincidence, but no, he's his grandson. Anyway, i know him not from Supernatural, but very close. I know him from playing Jeremy Gilbert on The Vampire Diaries for like, seven seasons or something. ah So great job.
01:16:50
Speaker
Great kid. um Yeah. Real CW face. Oh yeah, definitely. Definitely a real CW actor. And my book recommendation is for um Stephen Graham Jones's. My heart is a chainsaw.
01:17:08
Speaker
which is a fantastic horror novel that has, as its climax, a lake massacre while like it's this small town that shows Jaws at its lake you know every summer.
01:17:26
Speaker
on July 4th, and this is... ah Is it July? It doesn't matter. But it centers on a lake massacre with Jaws, and once the massacre got going in front of 3D, I was reminded a little bit. So if you want to check out a... ah You know, very different.
01:17:47
Speaker
ah It's a more serious book, but it's a great book. It also it also has a lot a lot of um ah horror movies in it. It's also a book about horror movies in a lot of ways. So.
01:18:01
Speaker
Fun. Yeah. Well, going to give my Batty Award. out to the lady that got her face ripped off. That was just a great moment. She had her hair stuck in her propeller and the boat couldn't go. And you're wondering, how are they going to resolve this? It really built up the tension of already this lady being in a horrible situation of being surrounded by piranhas and her hair is stuck in a boat propeller. And then you see a guy gun the engine and you think, oh, it's going to rip her scalp off. Oh, that's going terrible. but then it just rips off her entire face and you just get her or like unblinking eyes, just staring up at the sky screaming. It's a fantastic little, very quick visual gag. i loved it.
01:18:42
Speaker
So I gave it a batty award. Kyle, do you have a batty award? yeah I guess, know, if I have one sort of indelible image from the film, it would be Gerard Connell's legs. I think after he's stripped and then he's lifted and he's got these spindly legs and famously, as you alluded to, no penis, penis,
01:19:02
Speaker
Yeah. For me personally, like if you if you want one thing that's going to stay with you and and and put you off put you off your dinner, I think that that's got to be the one thing, especially because, you know, we was rewatching it last week. the The funniest image was me wearing the anaglyph glasses. and The second one was when he got picked up and my girlfriend who was at this point was on her phone and definitely not watching the movie, burst out laughing. So if it's going to catch her unawares and be funny for her, was not paying attention. She last saw the movie like three years ago. And it's what the fuck are you doing on on a Sunday afternoon?
01:19:34
Speaker
If that can make her laugh, then it'll make anyone watching this movie laugh. And, you know, i just think it's a really good marriage of of of writing and practical effect that have led us to this moment. So, yeah, great, great moment.
01:19:46
Speaker
Absolutely. And I can't believe none of us had mentioned, I forgot to mention, during the synopsis, you do get a shot of a piranha eating his penis and then vomiting his penis back up, which I think...
01:19:59
Speaker
really is just a summary of what is on offer in this film in some sense. Yeah, i do think the taste level you're working. It's like, OK, so does that make up for the the constant casual misogyny? Maybe not, but it helps.
01:20:16
Speaker
It doesn't hurt. doesn't i The film is an equal opportunities hater, basically. Yeah, well, like if you saw as many like ah male frontal nudity as you saw female frontal nudity, maybe. Equal opportunity might be a stretch. yeah But it does at least give a nod.
Closing Remarks & Next Episode Teaser
01:20:33
Speaker
But, Kyle, thank you so much for picking Piranha 3D. It was such a fun watch. I'm glad you both enjoyed it. I'm really glad you enjoyed it. Tell the listeners where they can find you.
01:20:44
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm one of these people who is just utterly disgusting and ah no longer offering my content for free. I'm available and and and over at patreon.com slash combat chronicles. You can find me on X on Combat CR um and on Blue Sky, which I do use, but I don't actually know my username on that, which is just brilliant for the podcast, of course, when you've got to go and check. I'm just so at combatchronicles.bsky.social. But yeah, um all my content is patreon.com slash combat chronicles. I did have a very short-lived horror podcast, but you know who's got time to have multiple podcasts? I certainly don't anymore. Yeah. But yeah, ah please come and see me rant about ah fights, sports, politics, movies. I love movies as much as I love hating them. So but yeah, I actually am an equal opportunities hater and you'll see that all the time as I spew forth um my unhinged rants. But I am a nice guy. So come and say hi and yeah, come join the cult. It's much appreciated.
01:21:47
Speaker
Well, listeners, you've got your marching orders. And come back next week, we're going to be having... i accidentally booked a double feature of bloody 3D movies. Next week, we're going to be talking about Nurse 3D, a beautiful counterpart to Piranha 3D. So... Bloody 3D movies with ah a lot of nudity. Like, they're really... Yes, with a lot of nudity. Strange, but... One more side. One more side. Sympatico, but a double feature.
01:22:18
Speaker
So you don't want to miss it. Our guest will be Rowan Robles. We'll see you then. Don't forget to check out our link tree in the show notes where you can find our blue sky, our Instagram, all our great stuff.
01:22:29
Speaker
Subscribe to our sub stack and here to take us out little bit of Steve Ioki and will.i.am. And until next week, be good and goodbye.
01:22:43
Speaker
Bye. You sure are, honey. You're nailing it, Will.