The sophomore effort for director Joe Dante, a future protégé of Steven Spielberg, this low-budget, high-camp horror spoof of Jaws (1977) features several chiller stars of yesteryear. Insurance investigator Maggie McKeown (Heather Menzies) is dispatched to find two missing teenage hikers near Lost River Lake. She hires surly backwoods drunkard Paul Grogan (Bradford Dillman) to serve as her guide. Searching the area, they find an abandoned military facility. The only resident is Dr. Robert Hoak
(Kevin McCarthy), former head of a top-secret project to breed piranha for use in the Vietnam War. The project was closed down years ago, but Hoak has continued raising a deadly strain of the flesh-eating fish. When Hoak is knocked unconscious, Maggie and Paul accidentally release the piranha into a local river, which leads to the lake where a children's summer camp and a newly opened tourist resort will provide plenty of fish food for the hungry predators. Maggie and Paul race to warn the locals, but their pleas fall on skeptical ears, such as those of resort owner Buck Gardner (Dick Miller) -- until the piranha reach the swimmers. Piranha (1978) was co-written by John Sayles, making his motion picture debut. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
It's strictly B-movie stuff, schlocky and silly and low on production values -- but it also knows it. That helps it transmogrify into a guilty pleasure.
Dante's tongue-in-cheek, teeth-in-thigh debut hasn't lost its bite; it spawns new meaning with each new eco-disaster. It plays very well as a cautionary tale about the dangers of invasive alien species... And don't those fish spread like an oil spill?
If you're looking for a senseless good time that goes a long way in terms of keeping you entertained, then this Piranha package may just be everything you've been hoping to sink your teeth into.
"I didn't ax-murder your young couple" is among the many witty one-liners in John Sayles' razor-sharp screenplay. It's the mundane direction and frantic, uninspired editing that hampers this 'Jaws' regurgitation. Of course, it's the lethargic excuse that a government conspiracy breed these carnivores. Unfortunately,
the superficial gore is merely red bubbles, rubbery puppets (which are barely discernible due to the extreme close-up angles) and minor teeth indentations. The piranha masticate on camping children, but the result is nothing remarkable and not nearly as savage as it could have been. Overall, this is a very lukewarm B-movie that would be intolerance if not for the subversive element that Sayles brought to both this and the superior satire 'Alligator'.
I couldn't get my head around the seemingly gentle, walking piranha-lizard thing watching, from the shadows of the laboratory, while its creator tussled with the two lead characters. It happens toward the beginning of the movie and within a half hour, you know it's not going to affect the rest of the plot or be a part
of a cliffhanger ending. Barbara Steele is weirdly hot, smart and evil; and Dick Miller is great as usual, with the most realistic comic dialogue in the movie.
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