A film crew shooting a B-Movie in the jungle comes face-to-face with a fearsome pair of piranhacondas, which resemble giant snakes with piranha teeth. To reach the requisite running time, a team of mercenaries is thrown into the mix, as well as a scientist eager to carry one of the creatures' eggs back to civilization.
PROS: The title is laugh out loud silly, which led me to believe that the film would tread the same waters as the vastly superior "Sharknado." Both films were SyFy Channel Original Movies, which further increased my hopes.
CONS: Too many to mention. This is a film that is inept on nearly every level. The script has none of the wit (and I use this term loosely) of the previously referenced "Sharknado." It doesn't even have the wit of grade school sleepover. Instead, it substitutes machine gun delivery of clichés and movie speak for character development. There can be no audience identification because the script is so bad that the actors know it. Star Michael Madsen looks pained (or drunk) every time he speaks. He seems to be ducking away from the camera, as if he's embarrassed by the screen time.
I know there are those that will argue that the script and acting are not the point of these movies. "Piranhaconda" makes that clear from the onset. Like clockwork, the director trots out some silicone enhanced beauties every ten minutes to be gnawed by the title characters. These women have no roles. They exist merely to add skin to the decidedly horrible plot. It's as if the SyFy Channel suddenly acknowledged that they could no longer court an audience through creature features and decided to hedge their bets with Cinemax skinflix inserts.
All of this might be forgiven if the creature effects were interesting. Or even competent. But neither is the case. SyFy again resorts to video game effects (and I'm talking early Nintendo here), which are almost laugh inducing. Actually, if they were laugh inducing, this might have provided some measure of enjoyment.
Not to beat the point to death, but would it have killed the filmmakers to have done a competent sound mix? Listen to the first ten minutes of "Piranhaconda" for a primer in how to ruin a low-budget movie with bad sound. Background audio rises or falls with the shot, a sure-fire sign that the filmmakers ran out of money and time before finalizing the picture.
This is an embarrassing film.
PROS: The title is laugh out loud silly, which led me to believe that the film would tread the same waters as the vastly superior "Sharknado." Both films were SyFy Channel Original Movies, which further increased my hopes.
CONS: Too many to mention. This is a film that is inept on nearly every level. The script has none of the wit (and I use this term loosely) of the previously referenced "Sharknado." It doesn't even have the wit of grade school sleepover. Instead, it substitutes machine gun delivery of clichés and movie speak for character development. There can be no audience identification because the script is so bad that the actors know it. Star Michael Madsen looks pained (or drunk) every time he speaks. He seems to be ducking away from the camera, as if he's embarrassed by the screen time.
I know there are those that will argue that the script and acting are not the point of these movies. "Piranhaconda" makes that clear from the onset. Like clockwork, the director trots out some silicone enhanced beauties every ten minutes to be gnawed by the title characters. These women have no roles. They exist merely to add skin to the decidedly horrible plot. It's as if the SyFy Channel suddenly acknowledged that they could no longer court an audience through creature features and decided to hedge their bets with Cinemax skinflix inserts.
All of this might be forgiven if the creature effects were interesting. Or even competent. But neither is the case. SyFy again resorts to video game effects (and I'm talking early Nintendo here), which are almost laugh inducing. Actually, if they were laugh inducing, this might have provided some measure of enjoyment.
Not to beat the point to death, but would it have killed the filmmakers to have done a competent sound mix? Listen to the first ten minutes of "Piranhaconda" for a primer in how to ruin a low-budget movie with bad sound. Background audio rises or falls with the shot, a sure-fire sign that the filmmakers ran out of money and time before finalizing the picture.
This is an embarrassing film.