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What’s more disgusting than seeing a person devoured by an unstoppable killing force? If you disagree when I say the debauchery of college kids on vacation is more deplorable, just take a look at “Piranha 3-D.”

To paraphrase another famous fish movie: “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the theater…”

Lake Victoria is a small, picture perfect little Arizona town for about 50 weeks out of the year.

But, when spring break rolls around every year, all bets are off as college students invade the burg for a booze-fueled frenzy with no rules and no inhibitions in the body of water.

Resident Jake Forester (Steven R. McQueen) may not be able to partake in such indulgences as the son of the local sheriff (Elisabeth Shue), but that doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate the sights while he’s supposed to be babysitting his brother and sister (Sage Ryan, Brooklyn Proulx).

However, the usual wave of tourists isn’t the only thing infesting the waters this year.

An earthquake in the middle of the lake has awakened an ancient force, an enormous swarm of prehistoric piranhas who have only one thing on their tiny minds: fresh meat.

McQueen does an acceptable job as the hometown teenager who finds it upon his shoulders to be the savior from this unpredictable threat, although he’s got nothing on his grandfather, the one and only Steve McQueen, who originated the teen hero stereotype in “The Blob.”

Shue is as good as ever as his mother, Julie, who’s used to dealing with pesky personalities, although a drunken sophomore is much easier to handle than a voracious fish the likes of which the world hasn’t seen since the Paleozoic era.

Joining her as she attempts to curb the bloodshed are Ving Rhames as her deputy and Adam Scott as the seismologist diver whose team discovers just how these little buggers came to be.

How lucky is it that the local pet store owner (Christopher Lloyd) is so well-versed in ichthyology dating back before man walked the earth?

But, speaking of the piranhas, you don’t have a good monster without some good victims, and we have those in spades with hundreds of inebriated swimmers providing fodder, though it’s hard to beat Jerry O’Connell as Derrick Jones, the purveyor of a “Girls Gone Wild”-esque series, whose extreme sleaziness makes Joe Francis look like a legitimate businessman.

As a remake of a movie that was basically a rip-off of “Jaws,” you’ve got to expect the carnage to be escalated and the aesthetics to be lowered, although an opening scene with Richard Dreyfuss as the boatsman who inadvertently unleashes the little fishies is a good start in putting us in mind of Steven Spielberg’s first big hit.

There’s a little something for everybody in this concoction of comedy, horror and soft-core porno for which the 3-D effects are the main selling point.

The campy atmosphere is ideal for lovers of movies that revel in bad taste, with the more pleasant things jumping off the screen being beer foam, vomit and bare, bouncing breasts.

However, it’s when things start to get serious that the laughs stop and everyone sobers up. It’s one thing to watch some mindless beasts gnaw apart unsuspecting idiots, but seeing these party animals destroy each other while they panic is much more gruesome.

Somewhere between the girl who gets sliced open by a wayward power line and another who gets her face pulled off by a boat motor is the line indicating that the makers have gone too far.

As a creature feature, “Piranha 3-D” does its job in letting us see some good, senseless mayhem even if it is eventually tainted by an increasingly dark sense of humor. One good thing you can say about it is that this is the kind of movie that absolutely must be seen in 3-D for the full grisly, gross effect that’s intended.

Hey, it’s still better than watching “Jaws III” on cable.