Piranha (1978)

August 24, 2018

Directed by: Joe Dante

Written by: Richard Robinson, John Sayles

Starring: Bradford Dillman, Heather Menzies-Ulrich

Budget: $600,000

Quote: People eat fish, Grogan. Fish don't eat people.

Trivia: Universal Studios attempted to sue New World for spoofing Jaws (1975). However, Steven Spielberg saw the movie in advance and loved it. After that, Universal dropped the lawsuit.





The horror genre has always fed off of its own successes. Whenever one of its own hits, you can expect dozens of imitations to hit the theaters or go straight to video. Most of these ripoffs are really, really terrible. But every now and then there comes a couple of great ones. Friday the 13th was the filmmakers attempt at doing Halloween. Italian director Lucio Fulci blatantly ripped off George Romero's zombie films with his own Zombi (Zombie 2). And then there's Piranha. Created for the sole purpose of capitalizing on Jaws' success, Piranha is actually a really fun movie with a lot going for it in its own right. Produced by the lord of exploitation, Roger Corman, Piranha also marks the directorial debut of Joe Dante who will go on to to fame with Gremlins, the Howling, and the "It's a Good Life" segment from the 1983 Twilight Zone: The Movie. Piranha captures the fun of the late seventies and ins't afraid to push the boundaries of taste a bit.

Piranha tells the story of what would happen if the government tried to weaponize Piranhas to use against the Viet Cong during the Vietnam war but after the war they were accidentally released into an American river. Surrounding the Piranha infested river are a few different story lines to keep the film moving. The film begins with a couple planning to go skinny dipping in what is obviously not a swimming pool but some industrial fixture with water. They get eaten by the Piranhas and blonde, ditsy, hottie Maggie is sent to find them (I guess she's a private detective or something?). She meets chronic alcoholic Paul who has just bought a bunch of hooch from his neighbor and spends most of the movie drinking booze out of a water canteen. Meanwhile, his daughter is at some camp down the river where she's being picked on by the camp director for being afraid to swim. Finally, there's the dirtbag military Colonel who is trying to keep everything under wraps.

All the storylines eventually merge as the film moves towards its climax. Paul and Maggie (first they bang, because there is nothing sexier than an alcoholic hermit) meet a scientist who was working on the fish but gets eaten up. Next, they realize the fish are moving down stream to Paul's daughter's camp so its a race against the clock to save them. The fish eventually get there and chew up a bunch of little kids (kids are usually off limits in horror movies... good on ya Joe Dante for upping the ante a bit!) and even kills a couple before they are dragged out of the water. Meanwhile the military colonel tries to poison the fish which does nothing (they're militarized dude!) Further down the stream is the public beach and vacation resort full of bikini clad girls and vacationing families. The fish then start chomping up these people while the mayor is unaware of what's happening  until his number two exclaims, "the piranhas... uh.. they're eat the guests sir." Eventually Paul comes to save the day by releasing industrial waste to kill the fish (Spoiler: It probably doesn't work making way for a sequel).

The movie is packed full of campy 1970s goodness. Paul's plan at the end involved him being tied around the waste with a rope and Maggie counting to 100 before pulling him out. At around 80 second the fish come and bite him up a bit before she hits the speed pedal (do boats have pedals?) on the boat and drags him out through an underground window. I'll see if I can find a .gif of it, because words don't do justice just how silly this scene looks. Also, there are a lot of scenes of people dragging themselves around, yelling at bubbling water, and underwater POV shots (Jacques Cousteau aint got nothing on Dante!). What is great about making a movie about Piranhas is that you really don't have to show the fish too much. The POV shots, bubbling water, and red dye in the water are enough, the viewer can fill in the rest. When we do get to see the fish (at one point they untie all the logs from a raft... remember, they're weaponized!) they are really comical.

What the hell is this and why is it in the movie?

While there were dozens of Jaws ripoffs that came out in the late seventies and early eighties, Piranha is probably the only one that people still remember and talk about today. It certainly is the only one the spawned not one but two reboots in 1995 and 2010 with the second reboot getting its own sequel in 2012. I think what made this film different from the other films and made it the enduring film it is today is three things. First, the film does not take itself too seriously. Being made with the understanding that it is a Jaws ripoff about killer fish, it has a campy lightness to it that makes it really fun to watch. It is a perfect beer drinking movie. Funny but not so much that it becomes unwatchable. Second, the acting is done really well. Unlike other low budget horror and exploitation movies, Joe Dante casted people that could actually act including Kevin McCarthy from both Invasion of the Body Snatches (1956 and 1978). Lastly, Dante did not just rely on the killer fish to be the entire plot of the film. Instead, the writers wrote several sub-stories that develop characters, heighten the action and build tension. Like Jaws, we actually care what happens to the characters.

I saw the 2010 reboot when it came to the theaters in 3-D and it was nice to finally see the movie the spawned that film. Oh, I almost forgot.... what the hell was that clay animation gremlin looking thing at the science lab? I really thought that was going to come into play in the movie but we never see it again. Really weird, huh?