Piranha (Roger Corman’s Cult Classics)

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4/5The Film

They subdue their attacker and unwittingly unleash an advanced species of piranha that can survive in fresh or salt water regardless of temperature into the river which feeds into a lake. Residing on this lack are a brand new resort, opened by a local business man (Dick Miller) and a children's summer camp run by a strange man named Mr. Dumont (Paul Bartel). Of course, Grogan's young daughter is at this camp, and so the race is on to get everyone out of the water before it's too late. Meanwhile, the military is moving in to try and cover things up, lead by a rival scientist named Dr. Mengers (Barbara Steele).

Loaded with blood, boobs and Lone Star Beer product placement, Piranha is a lot of good B-movie fun. The cast make the most of the material, playing it all completely straight despite the fact that, as the extras reveal, they were all pretty aware of how ridiculous it all was. We're in on the joke as we watch the movie but Dante does remind us that this is, first and foremost, a horror movie by frequently showing off some fairly strong attack scenes. Surprisingly enough, quite a few of these involve kids being nipped at by the ferocious razor toothed beasties, something that's still uncommon in a lot of movies. The script throws in some plot points that don't really go anywhere (a romantic connection between Steele and McCarthy is mentioned and never elaborated on) but for the most part it's pretty lean and to the point and the film certainly moves at a great pace from start to semi-predictable finish. You just know the ending is going to leave itself open for a sequel (it does and there was one, made by none other than James Cameron).

The effects work is generally pretty successful and while some of the older optical effects do show their age and make up appliances are frequently visible as just that, there's a nice little mean streak to the movie evident in scenes where an aging recluse has the skin chewed off of his legs right up to his knees or the scene where Dumont is attacked by a piranha brazen enough to jump out of the water and bite him on the face. A lot of well shot underwater scenes make the film seem a lot more expensive than it actually was and help to build tension for much of the film's run time while the Texas locations coupled with a memorable score courtesy of Pino Donaggio wrap it all up with a nice low budget bow. Nudity, gore and killer fish are always a good combination - the many Italian Jaws rip offs prove this as fact - but rarely do they come together as well as they do here and Piranha remains a pretty stellar slice of B-movie heaven.

4/5Video

3.5/5Audio

5/5Extras

Up next is an exclusive nineteen minute featurette called The Making Of Piranha that features brand new interviews with Roger Corman, Joe Dante, Dick Miller, Belinda Balaski, and a bunch of the guys who worked on the effects and creature design for the movie. There are some great stories here about how Corman's only feedback regarding the dailies was ‘needs more blood' as well as how taping multiple fake fish to one's body with gaffer tape can result in skin loss. Corman's notorious reputation for frugality in filmmaking is expanded upon here when the film's budget and financial backing is discussed. All interviewed here speak about the film quite affectionately and while it does cover some of the same ground as the commentary, getting input from the cast members and from the effects crew makes it pretty invaluable and equally as interesting.

Shout! Factory have also wrangled up some interesting excised material including a collection of bloopers and outtakes from the shoot. Also carried over from the New Concorde release, this material is amusing enough that you'll want to check it out at least once and in a roundabout way it gives us some interesting behind the scenes footage as well. There's some more behind the scenes footage included in its own section, again, carried over from the New Concorde release. There are also some alternate scenes from the network television version of the film included here. These are mostly just slightly different and more TV friendly bits but it's nice to see them included for the sake of completion.

Rounding out the extras are a trailer for the film (available in a standard version and in a Trailers From Hell version with commentary from Jon Davison, a collection of radio and TV spots, trailers for a few other Shout! Factory Corman releases, a great collection of behind the scenes stills from Phil Tippett's personal collection, a second still gallery featuring a wealth of promotional materials, awesome animated menus and chapter stops. Inside the keepcase is a full color booklet of liner notes from Michael Felsher detailing the film's history and influence. There's also some very cool reversible cover art included. If there's one completely anal nitpicky complaint to make here, it's that the Blu-ray doesn't include the bad ass lenticular sleeve that the standard definition DVD does.

4.5/5Overall

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Film Rating		DVD Rating
Director:	Joe Dante	Film:
Writer:	John Sayles	Video:
Released:	1978	Audio:
Cast:	Bradford Dillman, Heather Menzies, Keenan Wynn, Paul Bartel, Kevin McCarthy, Dick Miller	Extras:
		Overall: