In the 1970s and early 1980s, Roger Corman’s New World Pictures was responsible for churning out some of the most memorable B-movies of all time. Piranha, made in 1978 for an estimated budget of $660,000, is one of the best. That doesn’t mean it’s a great movie, but it does mean that it’s watchable.
Aiming to spoof the then-recent blockbuster Jaws, Piranha‘s storyline is meant to elicit laughs more than scares, although it tries half-heartedly to do so. When two teenagers go missing, investigator Maggie McKeown (Heather Menzies) is sent to a backwater Texas town to find them. She enlists the help of Paul Grogan (Bradford Dillman), who lives in a cabin near the river. Paul and Maggie start looking for the kids but find an abandoned Army test facility instead. The kids’ belongings are found near what looks like a large swimming pool. Maggie drains the pool in an attempt to find the kids’ bodies, but instead releases a school of mutated piranha into the river.
Dr. Hoak (Kevin McCarthy) warns Paul and Maggie that the piranha were part of “Operation Razor Teeth”, a project to breed specially mutated piranha for use in the Vietnam War. The fish are capable of living in cold water as easily as tropical rivers and breed at an incredible rate. When the war ended, the government pulled the plug on the project, but Hoak continued working with the fish until the pool was drained. If the fish make it downstream and reach the ocean, Hoak warns, they’ll swim up every river and take over the sea.
Piranha was written by John Sayles. Later in his career, Sayles wrote and directed Eight Men Out, Sunshine State, and Matewan, among others. Everyone has to start somewhere and for Sayles, Piranha was the beginning. It was the second film directed by Joe Dante, who would gain fame as the director of Gremlins, The ‘Burbs, and numerous TV episodes.
For hardcore horror buffs, Piranha is tame stuff but it’s fun to pick out the references to other movies and to celebrate when each of the B-movie veterans cast in the film makes an appearance. Dick Miller, Keenan Wynn, Barbara Steele, and Kevin McCarthy give this movie a cast list that’s a schlock fan’s wet dream. Throw in the fact that the make-up effects were done by a young Rob Bottin, who would later do makeup effects for Seven, RoboCop, and Total Recall among others; and that the film’s creature effects were done, in part, by Phil Tippett, who worked on Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and all three RoboCop movies, and you’ve got just enough reason to sit through what is ultimately a forgettable bit of B-movie fun.
3.0 out of 5.0 stars
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