In 1975, Steven Spielberg unleashed the most famous B-horror movie with an A-movie budget on audiences around the world, Jaws. Soon after, every movie studio was making an ecological horror film. What followed were movies about killer orcas, bears, frogs, and even killer bunnies. One stands out in my mind, though. It’s Joe Dante’s Piranha, produced by the legendary Roger Corman and released in 1978.
By 1978 Roger Corman was already an established name in film. His earliest credit is for producing Monster from the Ocean Floor in 1954. What followed were dozens of low-budget films produced independently without involvement from major studios. By 1978, Corman was already well known for churning out multiple movies a year (he directed nine movies in 1959), and Piranha was proof that he wasn’t going to slow down anytime soon.
Piranha isn’t a very original film, but it is a fun film. A very fun film. I honestly believe any movie featuring killer piranha, Dick Miller, Barbara Steele (in a minor role), Kevin McCarthy, and direction by Joe Dante is worth an hour and a half of my life.
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The movie starts out when a young couple comes across an in-ground pool in the woods. Of course, the pool is part of an abandoned military facility where they were genetically testing on piranha. Maggie, an investigator (Heather Menzies), is sent in to find the lost campers, and she soon gets tangled up in the government’s conspiracy. Maggie must now team up with the town drunk Paul (Bradford Dillman) and a washed-up scientist (Kevin McCarthy) to stop the evil garbage disposals from swimming downstream and devouring a group of children who are attending the grand opening of a water park. As expected, warnings are ignored, incidents are covered up, and scenery is chewed.
The best part of this movie, though, is that it’s actually better than the Jaws sequels. Piranha is filled with Joe Dante’s directorial charm and humor. One can see how and why his career would advance. The movie seems to know that it’s a knockoff but doesn’t care to tell the same story as Jaws. There is a wit with this movie that could later be seen in Dante’s Gremlins.
Jaws 2 had already come out by the time Piranha hit theaters, and Universal Studios had already been dealing with countless other Jaws cash-ins. Luckily Steven Spielberg himself would give the film an okay and get Universal Pictures to halt bringing up a lawsuit.
Corman had a hit when Joe Dante’s Piranha brought in sixteen million dollars on just a budget of about eight hundred thousand. This would give Dante the chance to direct the 1981 hit The Howling with effects wizard Rob Bottin. The Howling’s success would get Dante in a director spot for the 1983’s Twilight Zone: The Movie. Once again, Dante’s unique blend of comedy and horror (with McCarthy’s acting) got him the director’s chair for Spielberg’s produced Gremlins.
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Piranha was so successful that it ended up becoming its own franchise. In 1981, we saw flying piranha in Piranha II: The Spawning. The Italian production has been dubbed “the finest flying fish horror/comedy ever made” by the film’s director James Cameron. The less said about The Spawning, the better unless you enjoy so-bad-it’s good horror.
In 1995 Corman produced his own re-make of the 1979 film using most of the exact same special fx shots. This resulted in little more than a few airings on the Syfy Channel and TBS. The film was again remade in 2010 to generally positive reviews, resulting in a sequel Piranha 3DD in 2012. Piranha 3DD did not get the same favorable reviews.
In a world where several Sharknado films can exist, it’s easy to forget the smaller-scale films that leave a longer-lasting impact on the viewer. Next time you decide to sit down and watch Jaws 4: The Revenge (don’t act like you don’t), stop for a moment and pick up a copy of Joe Dante’s Piranha. It will be sure to give you a few jumps, chuckles, grins, and laughs.
