pumpktoberfest #19 - take me to the river.

film: mega piranha
beer: river horse hipp-o-lantern imperial pumpkin ale

when it comes to making a horror film, sometimes it helps to serve it up with a big ol helping of cheese. when it comes to movie cheese, the asylum, a movie studio that's known for films such as transmorphers, titanic II & mega shark vs giant octopus, takes the proverbial cake. one of their latest gems is their 2010 film, mega piranha, which shows what happens when piranhas mutate & grow to ridiculous proportions. it stars paul logan as special forces member jason fitch, former teen pop star tiffany as genetics researcher sarah monroe & barry williams (greg brady) as secretary of state bob grady. it premiered back in april on syfy & due to its high quantity of awesomeness, it got the channel's highest ratings of the year, as 2.2 million people tuned in. oh snap, ghost hunters! you got beat by a bunch of fish!

the film opens with a man & woman swimming in the orinoco river down in venezuela, but they're quickly eaten by piranhas. soon after, a u.s. ambassador, the venezuelan foreign minister & a bunch of bikini girls are shooting down the river in their party boat until they get chomped by a swarm of piranha who attack & sink the boat. that's when secretary of state grady dispatches jason fitch to venezuela, saying that they think it's the work of terrorists & that fitch needs to get down there "before we have another afghanistan on our hands." meanwhile, sarah monroe & a bunch of scientists are alarmed, as they've discovered that their attempts to boost the local piranha population have gone horribly wrong & the piranhas are now growing exponentially. oopsy daisy.

when fitch arrives, he finds that his venezuelan contact, colonel diaz, hates the scientists & doesn't believe a word they say. to make matters worse, he's not willing to cooperate with fitch's investigation into the matter. fitch is an american though, so he doesn't have to listen to no stinkin' venezuelan. instead, he does a bunch of ninja stuff, sneaks out of the military compound & does some unauthorized diving in the river. this is when he first encounters the deadly piranha, as he is first attacked underwater & then on shore by one that leaps out of the water at him. he kills them both with his special forces knife skills & brings the one that leapt on land back to colonel diaz to prove what's happening at the river. then he visits the scientists & brings the piranha along. when they see it, it confirms their suspicions & they inform fitch that if diaz doesn't reinforce the river dam that's currently holding the piranhas back, they'll continue growing, breach the dam & reach the mississippi river in 48 hours.

as is expected, that plan doesn't work & all hell breaks loose. i won't tell you what happens, but oh man is it completely implausible, completely hilarious & COMPLETELY cheesy. if you're looking for a film that blatantly ignores rational thought and the laws of space & time and does so in an extremely hilarious manner, you should totally check out mega piranha. it's SO worth it. if you enjoy it enough, you'll be happy to know that come next year tiffany is starring alongside debbie deborah gibson in another film by the asylum called mega python vs gatoroid. once again, it'll be airing on syfy & based on the fabulous donnybrook between the two former teen pop stars that's in the trailer, i'm fairly certain that the film's going to be just as awesome as mega piranha.

in the spirit of all things river-related, i drank a river horse hipp-o-lantern imperial pumpkin ale whilst watching piranhas wreak hilarious havoc on the waters of the americas. river horse is based in lambertville, new jersey, a city located just across the delaware river from its sister city, new hope, pennsylvania, home of ween. they've been brewing there since back in 1996 & in 2007 the company was sold to new owners. according to the website, they've "changed a lot of things at river horse since taking over." i guess that means that they do cool stuff like have an oktoberfest party (this coming saturday & sunday at the brewery), offer visitors a sampler of four beers for $1 & give occasional tours of the brewery. too bad they haven't got around to making a worthwhile website yet.

as for their hipp-o-lantern imperial pumpkin ale, it's a dark orange ale with a milky, wheaty complexion that smells absolutely lovely when poured into a glass. unlike many pumpkin beers, the hipp-o-lantern puts the pumpkin right up front in the mix. it's made with pumpkin puree that's balanced quite nicely with a range of spices (nutmeg? cinnamon? allspice?) & despite its high alcohol content (9.0% ABV), it's a flavorful, drinkable beer. in fact, it's one of the top five pumpkin beers i've ever had. unfortunately, i found this particular one at ninth avenue vintner in manhattan a few weeks back but haven't seen it there, or anywhere else for that matter, since. hopefully it won't be the last time i come across the river horse this pumpktoberfest season.