PIRANHA (1978 Version): A Fish Story, Corman-Style

Joe Dante is the arche­typal “fan­boy made good.”  A genre fan from child­hood, he started out writ­ing for Castle Of Frankenstein and later became a trailer edi­tor at New World Pictures.  He even­tu­ally tran­si­tioned into direct­ing and became the rare film­maker who could trans­late his pas­sion for schlock into com­mer­cially suc­cess­ful flicks like The Howling, Gremlins and Innerspace.  He first worked behind the cam­era as a co-director on the famous quickie b-movie trib­ute Hollywood Boulevard but the real begin­ning of his suc­cess story is Piranha, a low-budget riff on Jaws that com­pares favor­ably with its model thanks to Dante’s inge­nu­ity and sheer genre-love.

Piranha apes the plot and exploitable attrib­utes of Jaws closely but does so in a way that shows inven­tive­ness and genre smarts.  In Dante’s film, the unwit­ting heroes are Maggie (Heather Menzies), a skip-tracer who jour­neys to a rural area seek­ing a miss­ing young cou­ple, and Paul (Bradford Dillman), a reclu­sive cabin-dweller that she fast-talks into help­ing her.  They stum­ble onto the site of the dis­ap­pear­ance, a secret gov­ern­ment test­ing facil­ity with a large pool.  They drain it to look for the bod­ies and earn the ire of Dr. Hoak (Kevin McCarthy).  He informs them that said pool con­tained genetically-mutated piranha capa­ble of sur­viv­ing in both fresh and salt-water envi­rons — and the heroes have unknow­ingly released them into a large set of lakes.

From there, it’s a race against time to stop the piranha before they get to the heavily-inhabited lake­side areas.  It’s par­tic­u­larly impor­tant for Paul because his young daugh­ter is stay­ing at a camp near the lake — and there’s also a new lake­side resort open­ing fur­ther down the lake shore.  Maggie and Paul’s task is not easy but it gets even more dif­fi­cult when the mil­i­tary show up and try to silence them before they can warn any­one else.

The above syn­op­sis is a solid for­mula for aquatic may­hem — and Dante and crew deliver on every­thing it promises.  However, Piranha rises above the pack because it goes about its task in an intel­li­gent, lov­ingly crafted way.  The basis of its savvy approach is a smart script by first-time screen­writer (and future indie-film icon) John Sayles that lay­ers the sto­ry­line with quirky, well-drawn char­ac­ters that charm the viewer into car­ing about them.  Thus, when the monster-fish attacks kick in, it’s a pleas­ant sur­prise how dra­mat­i­cally involv­ing it is because the audi­ence is invested in these odd­ball heroes.

Piranha also boasts a well-chosen cast that fleshes out these char­ac­ter­i­za­tions.  Menzies shows a nice screwball-comedy verve as the plucky Maggie and reli­able char­ac­ter thesp Dillman brings an unfussy pro­fes­sion­al­ism and dry wit to Paul to bal­ances out  Menzies’ approach.  There’s also strong sup­port from Paul Bartel, doing his always-amusing author­i­tar­ian schtick as a fascis­tic camp owner, and Dick Miller, who steals as few scenes as the perpetually-agitated sleaze who runs the new resort.  Elsewhere, Melody Thomas and Belinda Balaski bring a sur­pris­ing amount of heart to their roles as camp coun­selors and for­mer Italian-horror queen Barbara Steele styl­ishly vamps it up as a sin­is­ter scientist.

However, the best ele­ment of Piranha is Dante’s skill­ful direc­tion.  He draws on his edit­ing back­ground to build a steady pace and care­fully weaves in black humor that off­sets the shocks with­out dilut­ing them (pay atten­tion to the news­pa­per head­lines and what pops up on t.v.‘s in the back­ground).  He shows his genre-fan roots by pack­ing in as many types of effects as the minis­cule bud­get will allow — stop-motion ani­ma­tion, pros­thet­ics, opti­cals — and he thank­fully had a crew of bud­ding pros (every­one from Rob Bottin to Phil Tippett) to real­ize them.  Best of all, he and co-editor Mark Goldblatt skill­fully chore­o­graph the big set­pieces, cut­ting them in a jagged, impres­sion­is­tic style that makes the viewer think they are see more than what is actu­ally shown.

Simply put, Piranha is one of the all-time gems in New World Pictures fil­mog­ra­phy and its thor­ough, savvy crafts­man­ship ensures it remains engag­ing today.  Dante would go onto big­ger and some­times bet­ter projects but this film proves that the verve he would show in later, greater works was already in place.

Piranha (1979) Piranha, pub­licly acknowl­edged by Steven Spielberg as “the best of the Jaws rip-offs,” received the Saturn Award Nomination for Best Horror Film in 1979.

Piranha (1979) (Blu-ray) First time on Blu-ray! Piranha, pub­licly acknowl­edged by Steven Spielberg as “the best of the Jaws rip-offs,” received the Saturn Award Nomination for Best Horror Film in 1979.