Lake Victoria's annual Spring party by 50,000 young revelers is about to
turn into a feeding frenzy with prehistoric hunger-pains. With
knee-trembler's above the waves and tremors below, released from their
dormant sleep, thousands upon thousands of flesh-eating nippers are
released into the lake with whetted appetites and razor-sharp teeth. With a
motley crew of strangers thrown together to defend these shores, it is now
up to them to prevent the largest eat-out in human, and piranha, history.
Sheriff Julie Forester (Elisabeth Shue) and Deputy Fallon (Ving Rhames),
investigate an incident involving a missing fisherman, Matt Boyd (Richard
Dreyfuss) near a Mesolithic Era Dig near Lake Victoria. After locating his
chewed-up body, they send it for an autopsy. While attending to another
incident, they capture a live unknown species of fish, which they take for
analysis to Goodman (Christopher Lloyd), who informs them that it is a
living example of an extinct prehistoric fish known as the Piranha. Fearing
an attack on humans during the Spring Break, she attempts to warn everyone
to stay away from the waters - albeit in vain - and must use all her
resources to combat an all-out attack. While she and her department attempt
to deal with this issue, she gets a message that her son, Jake (Steven R.
McQueen), (supposed to be baby-sitting his much younger siblings), that he,
along with a film cast and crew, as well his girlfriend, Kelly (Jessica
Szohr), are stranded abroad a stalled yacht, and may end up being the
latest victims to these razor-toothed fish.
A geological failure on the bottom of Lake Victoria opens a breach and
releases prehistoric flesh-eaters piranhas. Meanwhile, it is the Lake
Victoria spring party where teenagers arrive in to drink beer and booze,
get sun tanning, swim in the lake and have sex. When the local Sheriff
Julie Forester and her Deputy Fallon discover how danger the lake is, they
unsuccessfully try to avoid the tourists to jump into the water to protect
them. After saving many teenagers, Sheriff Forester learns that her family
is trapped in a yacht that is stranded in the reef and heads in a boat with
an acquaintance to rescue her children and family.
