I've wanted to see Piranha (1978) for a while now. It was Joe Dante's second movie for Roger Corman, with a John Sayles script. This is enticement enough, but I particularly want to see some of the sequels.
It starts with two teens hiking in the woods after dark. They hop a fence with a prominent No Trespassing sign around an old research facility. They decide to go skinnydipping in a pool, and ... the water turns red.
Later, on that same mountain, we find Keenan Wynne delivering groceries (booze) to surly backwoods drunk Bradford Dillman. Then we meet our other protagonist, Heather Menzies, a skiptracer who is assigned the task of finding those missing teens. When she gets to the mountain, she starts bossing Dillman around to get him to help her find the kids.
They go up to the research facility and start looking around. There are jars full of all kinds of specimens. There is also a little Harryhausen-esque monster running around, but nobody really sees it. Turns out they had plans for it but no budget. Still a cute little bonus.
They want to see if the kids wound up in the pool, so they find a lever and start draining it. But mad doctor Kevin McCarthy comes yelling at them. Then he steals their car, and drives it into a tree.
Next morning, back at Dillman's place, McCarthy wakes up and tells them that the pool was filled with mutant piranhas, which were emptied into the river when they drained it. Oh no! What about the kid's summer camp below the dam?
Since they have no working car, they get on a raft and start floating down to alert the authorities. How many swimmers or boaters will get chomped before they get there? And will the mysterious government agents lead by Barbara Steele help or let everyone die?
First of all, this was campy fun. Menzies seems to be competent and pushy, but also sort of ditzy. Dillman seems like a depressed loser, so of course him and Menzies get together. We get a lot of Dante/Corman regulars, like Dick Miller as a resort developer (who doesn't want to close the beach on July 4? Not really, but...) and Paul Bartel as the head of the summer camp, who wants to make sure the little girl who's afraid of the water gets in and swims doggone it.
But it's also pretty gory, with teens and children being chewed on left and right. No one seems to consider getting out of the water when the bitey things attack. What a concept!
Anyway, the sequel was supposed to be written and directed by James Cameron (who loves those wet movies), but it seems that the exec producer fired him and did a ton of reshoots/re-edits. Took out most of the camp and humor. I guess we'll watch that, if only to get to the latest sequel, Piranha 3DD.
In conclusion, there is about one second's worth of piranha or piranha model in this movie. Mostly just paper cutout silhouettes.
