Download Mega Piranha
Chiquita Stedronsky
Mega Piranha (also known as Megapiranha) is a 2010 science fiction action film produced by The Asylum.[1] It was directed by Eric Forsberg[2] and stars Tiffany, Paul Logan and Barry Williams.[3] In the tradition of The Asylum's catalog, this film is a mockbuster of Piranha 3D. It was filmed in Belize, Central America.
The film focuses on the Orinoco River in Venezuela, where a strain of genetically modified piranha have escaped into an isolated tributary of the river. Through human interference of the local environment, the megapiranha manage to escape from their isolated spot and swim downstream, killing all that cross their path. The megapiranha gradually make their way towards Florida[4] at the height of the tourist season.
After the outbreak, a team including Special Agent Fitch and Sarah Monroe, work to contain the megapiranhas within Venezuela. They begin to get into trouble with the authorities when they attempt to cross over the Venezuelan border. Not having proper clearance and documentation, Special Agent Fitch resorts to using the diplomacy of his fist and drives off. He is pursued by Colonel Antonio Diaz in a high-speed chase through the jungle. Throughout the chase, Fitch alternates driving a Toyota Camry and Hyundai Elantra while Diaz is seen at different points in a GMC Jimmy, Chevrolet Suburban, Suzuki XL-7, and Ford Explorer. Fitch escapes by stealing a helicopter and heads to the International Super Bunker (ISB). During the journey, the helicopter runs out of fuel and Sarah Monroe rigs the emergency oxygen tank to the fuel line to make it to the ISB safely.
In the middle of the operation, Colonel Diaz arrives in a helicopter, presumably using multiple fuel tanks to do this journey. The Colonel aims to get revenge on Agent Fitch and throws a rope into the water to trick him into climbing up into the enemy helicopter. Fitch, upon his arrival, shoots the pilot in the mouth with a flare gun, which causes the pilot's head to explode. Fitch then uses a homing beacon (which is actually a canister of CO2) to attract a megapiranha, jumping out of the helicopter shortly before it is consumed by the fishy behemoth.
Fitch is pursued by the megapiranha that ate the helicopter, eventually hiding in a reef where the megapiranha is unable to follow. When the piranha opens its mouth, Fitch shoots his gun at the helicopter still in the beast's jaws. The helicopter explodes, killing the fish. The other megapiranha converge on the bloodshed and Fitch is able to escape as the piranha enters a feeding frenzy and begin tearing each other to pieces, seemingly resulting in them wiping themselves out. Sarah and Fitch make out and all is well.
Dread Central wrote about the film: "Now, the question becomes whether Mega Piranha means we should expect a super-sized piranha a la Asylum's Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus or if they are basing their film around the prehistoric Megapiranha, a toothier, three-foot version of the carnivorous fish that became extinct millions of years ago. Given the big screen 3D remake is about these Megapiranha, I would say odds are high the latter will prove the case.[9]
A lot of stuff happens after this, I mean a lot of stuff, but basically it boils down to a muscle bound badass and a slightly overweight pop star doing battle against schools of piranha which have grown to the size of luxury hotels AND a crazed Venezuelan strongman who has inexplicably flown into U.S airspace and is blowing up stuff.
Just how does one measure the bite force of a piranha living in the wild? Well, you get out your rod and reel and go fishing. Land a specimen, then hang tight to the tail with one hand and use your other hand to support its belly while offering the fish a chance to bite the plates of a customized force gauge.
National Geographic video (natgeotv.com) of Justin Grubich and others fishing for piranha and testing bite force in the wild. (Alternate way to link to video: Try National Geographic website: -bite-force/)
"When you remove body size, the piranhas turn out to be the real champions," said Justin Grubich, study co-author and a marine biologist at the American University of Cairo. "They're the real champs in terms of jaw evolution."
Megapiranha paranensis, a 20- to 30-pound fish, lived in South America during the Miocene era, when the Amazon and Parana basin were one continuous habitat. During that time, all animals, from snakes to fish to crocodiles, were massive, Grubich said.
To understand how fearsome mega-piranha's bite was, they looked at its smaller, but no less fearsome relatives, the modern-day black piranha. Though they weigh a mere 2 pounds (0.9 kg) on average, piranhas are notorious for their razor-sharp teeth, voracious hunger for meat, and their ability to swarm, and devour, prey much larger than them, such as the 6-foot-long (2.5 meters) arapaima fish. Piranhas have even been known to bite off the toes of unwary human beach-goers, Grubich said. [Image Gallery: Freaky Fish]
Grubich and his team captured piranhas from the Amazon and had them clamp down on a metal device that measured their bite force. The mighty jaws generated up to 72 pounds-force (320 Newtons), about 35 times its weight, he said. That powerful force allows the piranha to quickly bite whole chunks of flesh from animals as they pass by. "When we started measuring the bites in these relatively, diminutive small little fish we were just blown away by how strong their bites were," he said.
Next, the team modeled the mechanical forces generated in the jaw. They determined the black piranha's bite was so fearsome, because the jaw muscles connected the back of the jaw to the front, almost up to the front teeth, allowing the muscle force to be transferred more efficiently to the teeth, he said.
By extrapolating from the jaw structure and size of the black piranha to the mega-piranha, the team was able to reconstruct the bite of the extinct predator. They found the mega-piranha would have packed a bite between 279 and 1,067 pounds-force (1,240 and 4,749 Newtons). Depending on the mega-piranha's weight, that force would range from nine to 50 times its weight. Pound-for-pound, thats as if a supermodel had the bite of a T. rex.
"Mega Piranha" chronicles the South American adventures of Jason Fitch (professional B-movie hero Paul Logan), a highly-trained Special Forces operative who's sent to investigate the mysterious circumstances surrounding the untimely deaths of a sleazy US Ambassador and a shady Venezuelan diplomat, much to the dismay of the local government. His journeys eventually lead him to melodramatic biologist Sarah Monroe (Tiffany), who firmly believes that the murders were committed by hordes of genetically-altered piranha with a bit of an attitude problem. Before you know say Gorton's Fisherman, these impossibly gigantic carnivorous fish are ready and willing to take a bite out of the world at-large. Fitch, of course, is the only one who can stop this aquatic menace.
Although it may not appear that way on the surface, the boys and girls at The Asylum know precisely what they're doing. The goofy effects, the silly set pieces, the horrendous dialogue -- the whole bloody affair is designed specifically to appeal to those who shamelessly enjoy cheap B-movies and podunk creature features. It's painfully obvious that nobody on-board this rickety cinematic ship is taking anything very seriously; Paul Logan, whose beachfront encounter with a squadron of flying piranha is both intensely hilarious and strangely embarrassing, is a damn good sport, especially since he's the one saddled with most of the action. It's all in good fun, which makes the vast majority of the picture's inherent flaws easily forgivable.
As alluring and seductive as overgrown piranhas with a hunger for human flesh may be, it was actually the appearance of 80's pop singer Tiffany and "The Brady Bunch" alumni Barry Williams that cemented my interest in the picture. It's not everyday that a motion picture is packed with this much kitschy star power, in particular those unleashed by The Asylum. Williams almost seems to relish his role as Bob Grady (get it?), and, truth be told, his performance isn't half bad. Tiffany, on the other hand, frequently looks lost and embarrassed, as if this production were forced upon her by an agent who's literally scraping the bottom of the barrel to find the poor girl legitimate work. echoua.com
Another close relative of the piranha, called pacu (singular and plural), is not so scary. Pacu have squared-off stumps of teeth used for munching veggies. (For the record, tales of carnivorous piranhas eating humans are fictional.)
Now a newly uncovered jawbone of a transition species ties all these teeth together. Named Megapiranha paranensis, this previously unknown fossil fish bridges the evolutionary gap between flesh-eating piranhas and their plant-eating cousins.
The new fossil shows an intermediate pattern: teeth in a zig-zag row. This suggests that the two rows in pacu were compressed to form a single row in piranhas. "It almost looks like the teeth are migrating from the second row into the first row," said John Lundberg, curator at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia and a co-author of a study of the jawbone.
If this is so, Megapiranha may be an intermediate step in the long process that produced the piranha's distinctive bite. To find out where Megapiranha falls in the evolutionary tree for these fishes, Dahdul examined hundreds of specimens of modern piranhas and their relatives.
"There are no documented human deaths from piranha attacks," according to the Encarta encyclopedia and other sources. They're known to eat worms and small fish. "A common feeding behavior is to nip off parts of the fins or scales from other types of fish," the encyclopedia explains. "This cropping tactic allows the victim to survive and regrow the injured parts, providing a kind of renewable food resource for piranhas."
35fe9a5643