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| PIRANHA (1978) |
I loved drive-in theaters and the cheap, trashy films that often played there – usually melodramatic revenge dramas, car-chase thrillers and rip-offs of high-profile, big-budget movies from major studios.
By the mid- to late 1970s, the spate of “Exorcist” clones significantly slowed. In its place came a series of “Jaws” rip-offs that saw fair to middling success from people hungry for the same thrills and scares they experienced when they saw the 1975 Steven Spielberg classic.
“Grizzly” led the way in 1976 with its story of an 18-foot rampaging grizzly bear. The next year saw “Tentacles,” about a killer octopus, and “Tintorera,” about a killer tiger shark. Then, in June 1978, the sub-par sequel “Jaws 2” hit screens.
My favorite is a small film that opened in drive-ins and second-run houses in August 1978. Joe Dante’s “Piranha” belongs to the class of films that are so pathetically bad, so poorly acted, so horribly directed that they instantly become a classic unequaled in cinema history.
“Piranha” is about as dumb as you can get: Flesh-eating piranha are accidentally released into a summer resort’s rivers and then dine on unsuspecting tourists. Victims are devoured totally by the piranha; river waters instantly turn a rich, bright red.
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| TENTACLES (1977), A BAD JAWS RIP-OFF WITHOUT HUMOR |
The trailer isn’t quite as effective as the one for the original “Jaws.” But the “Piranha” trailer nevertheless served its purpose for New World Pictures and legendary B-film producer Roger Corman. The 94-minute cheapie made a ton of money.
“Piranha” plays to the strengths of Corman – who got his start working for Samuel Z. Arkoff churning out low-budget shockers for American International Pictures. Corman shot movies quickly and marketed them smartly, often generating huge profits.
Corman’s flms also served as a training ground of sorts for future high-profile film makers. Jonathan Demme, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese and others got their start working on Corman productions.
After “Piranha,” Dante helmed the much better low-budget werewolf thriller “The Howling” and then moved on to such big budget films as “Gremlins” and “Matinee.” “Piranha” screenwriter John Sayles teamed with Dante on “The Howling” before establishing himself as America’s preeminent writer-director of intelligent independent films.
You can easily see Dante’s film making talent in “Piranha.”
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| PIRANHA 3D (2010), AN INFERIOR REMAKE OF ORIGINAL |
And that’s what makes “Piranha” such an amusing film.
In one scene, for example, the film’s hero, played by Bradford Dillman, dives into Lost River Lake to rescue a potential piranha victim. But wait. Dillman conveniently ignores the fact that the water is teeming with flesh-eating fish.
Dillman, the perfect leading man for a drive-in film, delivers his lines with an intensity that elicits laughs rather than scares. “There’ll be no way to contain them,” he says in a dire tone in one scene. “They’ll be able to swim up every river system in the country.”
Just three years earlier, in 1975’s “Bug,” Dillman fought a swarm of killer, ancient cockroaches that could literally ignite fires. In “Piranha,” he spends his time fighting off a school of man-eating fish. Dillman, it seems, spent much of the mid- to late 1970s saving mankind from nature’s fury while at the same time badly hamming it up on screen.
“Piranha” was remade twice, once in a 1995, made-for-cable film broadcast on Showtime and again in a 2010 theatrical 3-D version. Both remakes don’t come close to the trashy, campy entertainment value of the original. If you have a chance to see the original, don’t forget to lower your expectations – significantly. And enjoy.
“Piranha” is available for purchase and rental on DVD and Blu-ray high definition. Click here
to purchase the film on a special edition Blu-ray disc through Amazon.com. Click here
to buy the film on DVD through Amazon.com. The film is rated R for violence and nudity.
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