Preview to show before Avatar
This week, Shock Till You Drop was tipped off that audiences venturing out to see James Cameron’s Avatar this weekend will get a special 3-D preview of Alex Aja’s Piranha remake. Turns out, our source was dead-on and it is rolling out with prints. Furthermore, it won’t be available online until a later date, so you will have to get your butt into the theater to see Aja’s killer fish feeding frenzy.
I had a chance to score an early look at the trailer which begins by touting the magic of 3-D, offering images of vast landscapes before we’re dropped into the ocean. A narrator explains 3-D will take us to a place “unlike any other.”
The camera rises out of the water and into a full-blown Spring Break bash on Lake Victoria (the backdrop of the film). Here we get shots of hot bodies, bouncing breasts, some of the film’s porn star actresses and Eli Roth…until the bacchanal is cut short by a gal on a water tube being yanked violently underwater.
Star Steven McQueen is warned by on-screen mom Elizabeth Shue, “Whatever you do, do not go into the water!” and Ving Rhames issues a warning “The lake is off limits to everyone!” as we get dramatic shots of Richard Dreyfuss, Spring Breakers and Jerry O’Connell.
Then comes our first look at the threat: A wicked piranha staring menacingly from inside a tank at Christopher Lloyd who explains how the fish hunt. “The first bite draws blood, the blood draws the pack!”
From this point on, the trailer goes into berserker mode with a montage of the much talked about Spring Break massacre featured in the film, a piranha leaping out at the camera and an impressive shot of a dude on a jet ski doing an underwater flip of sorts. But the money shot comes at the end as a scuba diver ignites a flare only to be faced with a wall of piranha before the title hits us: PIRANHA 3D! There’s, of course, another money shot to cap the preview but I’ll save that as a surprise.
How’s it all look? Like a f**kin’ blast. Campy? Absolutely. Aja’s embracing the 3-D technology with some fun visual gags and the tone is a vast departure from the heavy horrors depicted in High Tension and The Hills Have Eyes. It’ll hit all the archetypal nature-run-amok beats for sure, but knowing Aja, he’ll likely put a new spin on it. Fingers crossed. Looking forward to seeing how this plays in 3-D.
Piranha opens on April 16. For our full set report, click here and here.
Source: Ryan Rotten, Managing Editor
