Piranha 3D

Piranha 3D takes place in the sleepy town of Lake Victoria, where every year the population explodes from 5,000 to 50,000 for Spring Break, to partake in a riot of sun and drunken fun. But this year, there's something more to worry about than hangovers and complaints from local old-timers; a new type of terror is about to be cut loose on Lake Victoria. After a sudden underwater tremor sets free scores of the prehistoric man-eating piranha, an unlikely group of strangers must band together to stop themselves from becoming fish food for the area's new razor-toothed residents. (Gary Reber)

Special features include commentary with Producer/Director Alexandre Aja, Producer Gregory Levasseur, and Producer Alex Taylor; the Don't Scream, Just Swim behind-the-scenes featurette in 10 segments (HD 129:38), including Special FX & Stunts; The Music, Piranha & Visual FX and Why 3D?; up-front previews; and BD-Live functionality.

Director Alexandre Aja has created an intense 3-D experience that was made such that everything projects and flies out of the screen, to heighten the immersive effect 3D can create for the viewer. The film was designed for 3D but not captured originally in 3D. Instead, a 2-D to 3-D conversion was performed by inner-D and Identify FX, with renown 3-D technology creator Lenny Lipton serving as the stereoscopic consultant. Every shot was blocked with high-quality post-production conversion in mind. Shot in the anamorphic Panavision format and supplemented with Super 35 underwater photography, the end result of the 2.40:1 1080p MVC 3-D Blu-ray is an intensely visceral, over-the-top 3-D experience. The 3D is intended to be gimmicky, and the movie delivers an intenseness that is not often experienced in this genre. One scene shows a transparent sphere housing a baby piranha embryo that floats in front of you, other scenes exhibit in-your-face nudity. Each scene builds as fear and suspense is heightened by the immersive effect 3D creates for the viewer. Compared to the 2-D version the intensity is far, far greater, due to the effectiveness of the 3D. As with the 2-D version, resolution is quite good and reveals fine textural variations in the rocky terrain around Lake Victoria, as well as facial features, clothing, and boating surfaces. The color palette is nicely saturated and emphasizes sun-drenched yellow and orange hues. Blacks are generally revealing, though, at times a bit crushed, which lessens shadow delineation. The underwater imagery is dramatic, with respectable depth perception. Overall, depth and perspective perception is quite good and natural. Characters are nicely offset against backgrounds, and one can easily differentiate foreground and background objects and the spatial relationships between characters and objects. Various 3-D gimmick effects are included, which heightens the squirmy visceral feel and grotesqueness. Surprisingly, even though a conversion, this is an effective horrific 3-D experience that delivers a lot of excitement. (Gary Reber)

The DTS-HD Master Audio™ 5.1-channel soundtrack is loud, at times aggressively enveloping. Water sounds subtle to intense—especially as the camera view shifts to underwater perspectives, the water engulfs and pressurizes the entire soundfield with an immersive sense of depth. The .1 LFE and the five main channels deliver prominent low bass, to provide a strong low-frequency foundation. During intense piranha attack scenes the sonics are manifest in complex motion sounds, to heighten the sense of an aquatic soundscape. Above the surface are sounds of screaming swimmers, gunshots, explosions, and dance music. Below the water are boat motors, frantic piranha swimming, and pressurized water rumblings. All sounds are strongly directionalized in the surround channels, to create an intense holosonic® immersive experience. Atmospheric and sound effects are reinforced with a dynamic-sounding music score that is sweeping in its soundstage presence. This is a high-energy sonic experience that intensifies the 3-D visual experience, making this an even more intense experience. (Gary Reber)