Monster of the Day #82

Updated on August 5, 2010 By Ken Begg 19 Comments

Let’s hope the good year for piranhas continues apace, shall we?  A few more weeks will tell the tale.

Pin It



Related Posts

  • The Rev. D.D.

    YES MEGA PIRANHA YES

    Everyone needs to see this at least once, just to see an Asylum movie that’s bad in the right way, unlike far too many of their movies.

    And also because it kicks ass all on its own.

    I have to admit, I like what I see of the upcoming piranha movie so far, but time will tell, won’t it?

  • Ericb

    Hmmm, doesn’t a giant piranha kind of defeat the unique quality of terror that piranhas provide(i.e. a swarm of small creatures that relentlessly devour their prey to the bone)?

  • Yes, plus they explode.

  • BeckoningChasm

    It’s in the Netflix queue.

  • TongoRad

    As a child of the 70’s I surely recall the beginnings of the pirhanna ‘craze’, if you could call it that. I believe it all started on some news magazine that showed a short video of a great big hunk of meat (could have been a ham, could have been a leg of lamb) being lowered into a pool of pirhanas and then like 45 seconds later it was raised but only the bone remained. This, of course, fascinated and scared the heck out of people so the only course of action for enterprising filmmakers was to exploit this feeling the best that they could. (What was never explained was that this is not ‘normal’ behavior on the part of the pirhannas; those in the video were starved due to unusual weather conditions, being separated from their normal food source).

    So anyway, yeah I guess I’m aboard the train that thinks they need to behave as a relentless swarm to be truly effective. Then again, it seem like the whole exploding thing might mitigate that whole factor. I just may have to check this one out.

  • John Nowak

    Oo, piranhas. I’ve been spooked by them since that EC comic book where a fat man gets put into a bathtub filled with them.

    Mega-piranhas sort of defeats the purpose. Piranhas are properly Those Who Kill With Nibbles.

  • Not-So-Great Cthulhu

    They explode?!

    Time to Netflix this one.

  • Not-So-Great Cthulhu

    Interesting. According to Netflix, more movies like Mega Piranah:

    “The Omega Man”, “Day of the Triffids”, “Raging Sharks”, “The Angry Red Planet”, “Tarantual/The Mole People”, “Ogre”, “The Fly 2”, “Night of the Comet”, “Torture Room”, and…

    … “The Brady Bunch Variety Hour”.

    One of these things is not like the others.

  • The Rev.

    They fly, they explode, they crash into things…

    They don’t start out that big, by the way. Still, I don’t want to be eaten by giant OR regular-sized piranhas. I’m sure one’s much quicker, but I’d much rather die in a manner that doesn’t involve something eating me, regardless of their size.

    Besides, this movie isn’t about scaring people, it’s about KICKING ASS.

  • Ericb

    The cgi is so bad I’m naving trouble trying to figure out the perspective on that picture. Is the piranha supposed to be right next to the helicopter?

  • Pretty much, yeah.

  • The Rev.

    The bad CGI somehow adds to the charm of the movie, rather than hurting it. Probably because they were so ambitious in what they were trying to do, and the results were so hilarious, that I was willing to forgive in this case.

    I should probably stop with this; I don’t want to oversell it and possibly disappoint people. I do think, however, it’s one of the better bad movies I’ve seen in a while, and it’s probably the Asylum’s best effort to date. I think if you like bad movies the way we do, you will have a good deal of fun with this one. I know Ken isn’t as big a champion for it as I am, but he liked it too, so there’s a better recommendation than me.

  • fish eye no miko

    We’re going to need a bigger helicopter…

  • Rock Baker

    This almost looks like a lobby card, which is really cool.

    And somehow the idea isn’t working for me. If you enlarge a piranha it becomes a shark. Piranha are kind of spooky because they attack from all directions and you can’t fight them off as easily as a larger animal. To use a local standard, if ticks denuded flesh at the rate piranha do, I’d rather fight with a bear. The giant piranha thing doesn’t really work for me because it would be easier to kill, and you’d only have one enemy to deal with. True, I haven’t seen the film, but the above thought is the main reason I never cared to.

  • BeckoningChasm

    Now, now, Rock, if you insist that a creature retain its distinctive nature for a Sci Fi Original Movie, they’d never be able to make any of them!

    – come to think of it, how is that a bad thing?

  • Rock Baker

    I have to admit, I’m fairly selective in my appreciation of lower-rung movies. I’ve seen some dreck from the 70s and 80s that I enjoyed, but I never could get into the Sci-Fi Channel’s threadbare DTV movies with humiliated post-career actors and cartoon giant snakes and sharks.

    I know these things are some people’s bread and butter, I just can’t claim to be one of them.

    Really, though, the oversized piranha idea just hits me the wrong way for some reason. I AM looking forward to Piranha 3-D though! I’m hoping the local drive-in decides to run it.

  • BeckoningChasm

    I’m no fan of the Sci Fi original stuff. The best that could be said about Mega-Shark Vs. Giant Octopus was that it was watchable. Ice Spiders on the other hand was a total waste of time.

    Most of the Sci Fi stuff does what it was supposed to do: keep the commercials from smashing into each other.

  • Rock Baker

    “Most of the Sci Fi stuff does what it was supposed to do: keep the commercials from smashing into each other.”

    Sure, but why is TV movies can no longer perform this task and keep the viewers genuinely entertained? Did they stop making GOOD TV movies after 1980?

  • Dr. Whiggs

    So did Ken like Piranha 3-D? I missed his reactions.