Piranha (1978) Movie Review, Trailer, Film Still and Poster

USA 1978
Director: Joe Dante
Cast: Heather Menzies, Bradford Dillman, Kevin McCarthy, Dick Miller, Paul Bartel, Barbara Steele
Rating: R
Release Date: 3 August 1978
Running Time: 1 hour 34 minutes

The Movie Review

Piranha film still 1


PIRANHA
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One scary fangy little creature is bad enough if we have to encounter it, but what if they show up in a pack consists of hundreds? Piranhas are those terrifying creatures that always show up in a school of fishes. An origin of the Amazonian river that flows in Brazil, Piranha is one of the dreaded water predators that could finish its prey in a painful way. I still remember vividly how my dad told me about this fish and how the story mesmerized me. I thought 'What kind of creepy fish is that?' In my childhood, the only types of fishes that stuck to my mind were dolphins, mermaids (ok, it's not fish but at least mermaids are sexy) and of course Sharks, or what most people would refer it as Jaws. What is Sharks in Jaws have got to do with Piranha? Nothing straightforwardly actually, it's just that Piranha is undoubtedly a movie that tried to cash in from the success of Steven Spielberg's Jaws in 1975. And for Piranha's own status as a "B movie" and low-budget flick, it can be considered as slightly above-average... satisfying.

The actual Piranha fishes gained notorious popularity in 1914 when then-US President Theodore Roosevelt published his book which one of the section states that Piranha is the most ferocious fish in the world that habitually attack things much larger than themselves. And in 1978, famous producer Roger Corman tried to depict the ferocity of the Piranhas with his movie. Piranha storyline began with a woman sent by the Skip Tracing Company (a company to find missing people) to locate a young couple who gone missing in the wilderness. Her name is Maggie McKeown (Heather Menzies from The Sound of Music (1965)), the energetic young woman than enlists the help of the reluctant drunk divorcee, Paul Grogan (Bradford Dillman). Their amateurish investigation leads them to a seemingly abandoned military base which houses creepy experimental creatures. Maggie and Paul accidentally release the mutated Piranhas to the river. Now Paul and Maggie had to rush to save Paul's daughter Suzie who is currently attending summer camp. The Kids are on the water! And the local tourism site has just been recently opened! All the fun and danger mix together before their eyes. Will Paul and Maggie be able to convince them?

Some people might refer Piranha as a spoof of Jaws (1975). But I'm not entirely agree with that, sure Jaws was superior and had traumatized me deeply to dip into the water and the scary scenes were absolutely planted firmly in my head as a child, but to degrade Piranha as merely a parody is quite wrong. Granted, Piranha does have some incredibly hilarious jokes, but the scenes with the kids and the visitors of Lost River Lake Resort being munched are intense. It's not very often do we see kids become the victims in an animal gone wild movie. Some of you might not be impressed by its dated look of the Piranha, for example… when the piranhas are chasing their prey, the piranhas look more like cheap paper fishes used as ornament for window blind. Although when they were closed up, the anatomy resembles a real Piranha. Plus the sound effect of the Piranhas eating the people are just funny as heck. But if you could overlook those flaws, than Piranha is actually quite entertaining.

When it comes to animal gone wild or creature feature like this, I mostly prefer animatronics, prosthetics, puppets, and creature suits instead of the CGI one being used to create the look of the creatures. What lacks in effects in Piranha (due to limited budget), it makes up in the storyline. The acting is just mediocre but at least Bradford Dilman and Heather Menzies were used to deal with scary creatures with their respective previous films, The Swarm (1978) and Sssssss (1973). Other plus points from this movie being a B-Movie flick, we got several dry gory scenes and people being munched in ultra close-up (confusing) shots, and also several topless scenes with particularly one of them is drop-dead hilarious. But the thing is, the gore and the nude scenes are not the main attraction in Piranha, they're just side dishes, the directing is what counts.

My advice for you is when you hear Maggie says 'Are you gay?, Look it's Superman!' look nowhere else and then prepare to be happily shocked, because what you're going to see is much more real and worth the viewing than Superman :-) Besides the Piranhas in this movie are not just ordinary Piranhas..., Why? Let's just say that these Piranhas are fond of bras! Do all mutated American piranhas like to eat bras? Any chance to import them? ;-) Just kidding. In conclusion, if you like animal gone amok movies, then Piranha is definitely worth a look, don't expect too much though, but Piranha definitely is much more entertaining than most of SciFi Channel movies. If you like Alligator (1980) and The Howling (1981), you might wanna check Piranha, they all written by the same person, John Sayles. And Barbara Steele (from The Long Hair of Death (1964), Caged Heat (1974) and Black Sunday (1960) made a rather short appearance (and clean) but still with style. Roger Corman's regular, Dick Miller, also appears as the greedy owner of Lake River Resort.

People eat fish Grogan...Fish don't eat people.... Jaws is still better, but Piranha is also ok, for fans of this type of movie of course. But for others, you could safely skip this Piranha. But you might wanna check the 2010 remake, Piranha (2010).