On This Day in Horror History Aquatic Horror Ruled as ‘Open Water’ and ‘Piranha 3D’ Opened Theatrically

I enjoy a good terror piece set on or in the water. Water alone is such a mind numbingly powerful element that just a wave of colossal proportions can leave us completely paralyzed. Throw in some sharks, or even piranhas, and you’ve got a film twice as terrifying as it could be. That’s a good thing, we like terrifying, and we like both Open Water and Piranha 3D, which celebrate birthdays today!

Open Water, which turns 13 today, never surpassed a fifth-place ranking at the box office, but it was an absolute success for Lionsgate. Shot on $500,000 budget, the film raked in a worldwide total of $54 million. That’s a hit worth talking about, and in cinematic circles it still is… not only that, but Lionsgate is transforming shark tales into Open Water franchise installments, and surprisingly, none of them have been terrible films.

And then there’s Piranha 3D (the movie debuted seven years ago)…

Casual fans didn’t expect much more than hardcore fans from this outlandish remake. Knowing that, you can comfortably assume that a lot of moviegoers had their minds completely blown by this ultra-gory and often hilarious film. There aren’t many genre pics as fun as Piranha 3D. Fortunately for fans who got a sequel they no doubt craved, quite a few made the trek to the local cinema to support it; Piranha 3D made a worldwide total of $83 million. It more than tripled its budget and secured that aforementioned sequel.