Piranha
(1978)
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"Operation Razorteeth," a government project involving the breeding of mutant piranhas, gets way out of hand when the fish raid a lake at a summer camp for kids in this Roger Corman-produced, Joe Dante-directed classic. Heather Menzies stars as Maggie McKeown, an insurance investigator out to trace a missing teenage couple who have disappeared in the woods. With the help of a drunken recluse, Paul Grogan (Bradford Dillman), they come across a supposedly deserted army base inhabited by Dr. Robert Hoak (Kevin McCarthy) who has been breeding the deadly fish in secret. In their hunt for the missing couple McKeown and Grogan drain the army pool, unleashing millions of mutant piranhas into the lake of a nearby children's summer camp and a newly opened tourist resort. Smart exploitation with a ludicrous and clever script co-written by John Sayles, this drive-in answer to JAWS is full of film references and plenty of B-movie thrills (gore and nudity). PIRANHA is the kind of movie they don't make anymore--and better yet--it holds up well. |
In this sly, witty cash-in on Jaws, director Joe Dante and writer John Sayles dream up a deliriously silly tale about a shoal of killer fish, bred by the army for use in Vietnam, that escapes and munches its way through the waterways of America. Bradford Dillman keeps an admirably straight face as the hero and there are neat supporting turns from Kevin McCarthy, Keenan Wynn, Dick Miller and Barbara Steele. Even at this early stage of his career, Dante embellishes the film with an array of references to other movies, and the laughs and blood flow in equal measure.
Halliwell's Film Guide
Slightly spoofy thriller with a high death rate and a better than usual script. On the whole, an improvement on Jaws.