I'm a huge fan of Joe Dantes work, even going so far as to buy every movie has directed. There's something about his style, especially the mixture of humor and lighthearted horror elements that always seemed to resonate well with me. Piranhas is a movie I had on my watch-list for quite some time but I was never able to find a copy of it with a good quality. By total accident I found the special edition Blu-Ray Edition of Piranhas. I was exhilarated and bought it immediately.So, how well does Dantes second feature film hold up after all these years? Surprisingly well! This has all the good stuff in it that you'd expect from a Roger Corman production. Blood, boobs, humor, fake looking special effects, its all there, but its all done with a lot of passion! I watched some bonus material of how the piranhas were made and discovered that Phil Tippet (now an Oscar winner for his work on movies like Star Wars) actually made the pesky little fish rats. I gotta say, after watching the bonus stuff, I had even more respect for the movie, for the sheer fact alone of how much work went into it. No wonder they all involved to Hollywood legends, these people are creative forces! Now, with all that said, its still amateur film-making. So don't expect next level Kubrick. The acting is at parts really good, especially from Bradford Dillman, and at parts really cringe worthy, just like it should be. The story is rather simple and I wont bother going into details, its just entertaining schlock with some great moments. I was surprised how serious it actually took itself. There were quiet some funny scenes but for the most part, its actually pretty dark. All in all, this movie really impressed me. I was entertained for the entirety of the film and there never seemed to be a dull moment. The underwater scenes still look great and the gore effect don't disappoint. Give it a try!

Piranha (1978): Dir: Joe Dante / Cast: Bradford Dillman, Heather Menzies, Kevin McCarthy, Keenan Wynn, Dick Miller: While Jaws is an underwater thriller masterpiece. Director Joe Dante presents a miniature version that involves rows of razor sharp teeth. Piranhas are accidentally released and they swarm down river devouring anybody who falls into the water. Thankfully Dante allows for some interesting characters and humour. Bradford Dillman plays Paul Grogan who is perceived as a drunk, which complicates any attempt to warn authorities. Heather Menzies plays Maggie who arrives on the scene to find answers to the disappearance of two backpackers. Viewers are given the answers to this in the film's opening sequence. The chemistry between Dillman and Menzies holds strong due to humour interaction. Kevin McCarthy steals moments as a scientist who contained the piranhas for an experiment that was intended as a war weapon. McCarthy plays a character perceived as being out of his mind until he risks his life to save a boy stranded upon an overturned canoe. Other characters are not as well drawn but well cast with actors like Keenan Wynn and Dick Miller. The piranhas are amusing but a scene where children are mauled in the water is not so fun to watch. It is gruesome but somewhat fun in presenting a less imposing creature than in Jaws, and instead shrinking the viscous scale. Score: 8 ½ / 10

Dante's movies are either hit or miss for me. This one was a huge miss. It wasn't that funny or thrilling for me. They were clearly trying to cash in on the Jaws fame by making a spoof, but he fails miserably. Everybody takes everything seriously in this film. I was just completely bored throughout the entire thing. The attacks are dull and lack suspense. There were no interesting characters, even though the actors seemed to be game. Greats like Steele and McCarthy add some much needed class to this movie, but I disliked everything else. If you wanna watch a really fun Piranha movie, watch Piranha 3D (NOT the crappy sequel, Piranha 3DD)4/10

Steven Spielberg called PIRANHA his favorite of the numerous JAWS "rip offs" but it really deserves better than that label. Though clearly made in response to Spielberg's monumentally successful film, it has its own unique style and attitude and is really no more a rip-off than JAWS itself was a rip-off of the numerous 50s creature features that inspired it. I also wouldn't refer to it as a spoof or even a comedy. It's a horror movie first and foremost; one that just happens to have a good sense of humor. Released just months after the first JAWS sequel (itself a big hit), Universal strongly considered filing an injunction against producer Roger Corman and his company New World Pictures on the grounds this was an unauthorized spoof of their big money-maker. Supposedly, it was Spielberg himself (a fan of the film) who actually talked them out of it. As a result, PIRANHA became one of New World's biggest hits; grossing 16 million dollars worldwide (6 million in the U.S. alone) on a budget of just 660,000 dollars.A couple of young hikers stumble upon a remote, abandoned government facility late at night and decide to take a dip in what they believe to be a swimming pool, which turns out to actually be a large holding tank housing hundreds of flesh-eating fish. Needless to say, neither of the teens make it back home that night. Skip tracer Maggie McKeown (Heather Menzies) is hired to find them and travels to the small town of Indian Springs to start her investigation. The first man she happens to meet is Paul Grogan (Bradford Dillman); a gruff, sarcastic, unshaven, divorced single dad who's been wasting away at a cabin in the woods and drowning his sorrows in booze. Maggie insists he take her to the military installation and he begrudgingly agrees. After finding evidence that the teens had indeed been there, Maggie drains the pool to make sure they didn't drown. Instead, she inadvertently unleashes a slew of vicious, scientifically-altered, rapidly-multiplying freshwater piranha into the river, which were part of an abandoned Vietnam era army experiment called "Operation Razorteeth." From then on, it's a race down the river to try to reach a dam before they're released into more heavily-populated areas.PIRANHA is about as close as you can come to being a perfectly realized B horror flick. There's sharp dialogue (courtesy of the talented John Sayles), action, laughs, blood, enjoyable characters and even some effectively suspenseful and horrific moments. Best of all is perhaps the truly excellent cast; many of whom were chosen specifically to appeal to fans of these kind of films and each bringing their own special spark to the proceedings. Kevin McCarthy gets to channel some of his INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS hysteria as Dr. Hoak, a straggler who's still doing experiments at the closed installation. There are other memorable roles for horror queen Barbara Steele as a sultry (and corrupt) "fish geneticist," Paul Bartel as a drill sergeant-like summer camp owner and Dick Miller as a Texas businessman whose new family lake resort becomes an an all-you-can-eat buffet because of his refusal to shut down. Dillman (an under-appreciated actor if there ever was one) and Menzies have good on-screen chemistry and make for very likable leads.In addition to the fine cast, there's a good score from Pino Donaggio (which has obvious echoes of his earlier CARRIE score), a clip from THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD (1957) on a TV set, in joke references to everything from CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON to "Moby Dick" and they even briefly throw in a great little stop-motion critter inspired by the Ymir in 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH (1957), which was designed and animated by Phil Tippett. The piranha effects themselves, while not great, are fairly effective because they were smart enough not to dwell on them for too long and utilize rapid editing, lots of water thrashing and gallons of blood in the attack scenes. Fx wizards like Rob Bottin, Chris Walas and Robert Short (all of whom went on to win Oscars) were just a few of the names to, uh, cut their teeth, on this one.The film's success prompted the sequel PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING (1981) a few years later, which featured the novelty of flying killer piranha but is best remembered these days as the directorial debut of James Cameron (who was fired before the film's completion). PIRANHA was also remade in 1995 for cable TV (Corman also produced that version) and was then loosely remade a second time into a sleazy / gory trash-fest by director Alexandre Aja as PIRANHA 3D (2010), which itself was followed by a sequel: John Gulager's PIRANHA 3DD (2012). The original is easily the best of all of these, though Aja's film is also surprisingly fun.