Piranha Sharks (2016, USA)

Over at imdb, the bio page of director Leigh Scott, the director, producer and co-scripter of this slab of malodorous filmic cheese currently (26 June 2023) states that "Leigh has always looked to push the envelope in both the business and creative aspects of the [film] industry." And that he does with this sorry-ass excuse of a film, which seriously pushes the boundaries of what can possibly even be called a "movie", whether one is speaking of a bad movie, funny movie, cheap movie, trash movie, or worthless movie. And while we may have mildly enjoyed one of Scott's earlier Asylum projects, the nano-budget mockbuster that is Transmorphers (2007), for being as terrible as it is, we cannot say the same thing about this obscure project, which pretty much feels as if it was shot and written on the fly every other weekend whenever the various dudes and dudettes had time off from their real jobs at IHOP or Victoria's Secrets. (Many of the females have the oddly American generic porn actress look, but though they may look the part, their imdb project pages indicate that none seem to pay the rent by working in that industry segment.)

Trailer to

Piranha Sharks:

The feeling that Piranha Sharks was a weekend project is magnified by its rather disjointed and episodic non-plot, which doesn't develop as much as it jumps scene to scene. The first scene involves some scientist dying when there is a security breach and some bio-engineered nano-piranha sharks escape and eat him from the inside. To make up for the financial loss of the subsequently shelved bio-weapon project, a typically neoliberal, pro-capitalist solution is decided upon: piranha sharks enter the market as the newest thing since Sea Monkeys, perfect as a holiday gift. For whatever reason, they are either only sold or only bought in New York City, where they promptly get loose and start chowing folks down. To prevent piranha sharks from spreading, the US government decides to nuke Manhattan. An omnium gatherum of exterminator roommates runs against the clock to destroy the piranha sharks and save both Manhattan and their diverse significant others...

Needless to say, Piranha Sharks is meant to be an inane black comedy of sorts, but the humor is pretty much lacking, as is any realistic blood or gore or special effects. The non-narrative is turgid, and lacks even the one thing that usually is added to add some spice to a project this unexceptional: nudity. There is really no naked flesh of note to speak of, despite the generic porn-actress appearance of the discretely covered and dressed females, one bathtub scene, and a good portion of the movie being set in a strip club. One rather annoying new age slacker guy (John Wells) does remove his shirt to reveal an absolutely breathtakingly chiseled torso, but he keeps his pants on so who knows if the rest of him is equally impressive. All of him that is shown, however, deserves a better movie than this one.

Piranha Sharks indicates — no: it screams — a lazy director and scriptwriter of no talent who has less directed a movie than simply pointed the camera at his cast, most of whom truly do not seem to realize that the project they are part of is, at best, career damaging. 

That, in turn, might explain the presence of the only recognizable face, that of that Hercules guy (Kevin Sorbo, anatomically correct doll below), whose meager career has long descended into a take-any-offer-given non-career. Piranha Sharks is definitely not a "movie" worth bothering with, for Piranha Sharks is not a movie: it is a bowel movement.