film rating:
disc rating:
company: New World Pictures
year: 1978
runtime: 94′
director: Joe Dante
cast: Bradford Dillman, Heather Menzies,
Kevin McCarthy, Keenan Wynn,
Dick Miller, Barbara Steele,
Belinda Balaski, Melody Scott
Paul Bartel, Bruce Gordon
writer: John Sayles
and Richard Robinson
cinematography: Jamie Anderson
music: Pino Donaggio
Reviewed from a screener provided
by Shout! Factory, LLC.
Pre-order this film from Amazon.com:
DVD | Blu-ray

Piranha is due out on special edition DVD and Blu-ray from Shout! Factory on August 3rd (the 32nd anniversary of its original theatrical debut). The title can currently be pre-ordered through Amazon.com and other online retailers.

Plot: While investigating the disappearance of a pair of teenagers a private detective and an alcoholic recluse inadvertently release a swarm of genetically engineered Vietnam-era weapons-grade piranha into a river just upstream from a recently constructed tourist trap.

A king among low budget cult films, Piranha is easily one of the most successful and best remembered of the movies produced by and released through Roger Corman’s New World Pictures. Directed by Joe Dante (Gremlins) from a sharp script by John Sayles (Alligator, Passion Fish) and cast with an impressive slate of name stars and cult icons including Bradford Dillman (Bug, The Swarm), Kevin McCarthy (Invasion of the Body Snatchers), Keenan Wynn (Once Upon a Time in the West) and Barbara Steele (Black Sunday, Shivers), the film blends gory horror with a wickedly sardonic sense of humor to make inimitable B-movie gold.

Of course, inimitable is an interesting choice of words in the case of a film that is itself so obviously an imitation. Centering around a largely unseen aquatic menace that chews its way through mountains of unsuspecting tourists, Piranha’s very existence owes itself to the mass success of Spielberg’s Jaws (whose source material, in turn, owed quite a debt to Melville’s 1851 novel Moby Dick). The announcement of the multi-million dollar sequel Jaws 2, the most expensive film Universal had ever attempted up to that point, surely had no small part in influencing Piranha’s timing, with Corman’s production seeing theatrical release nary a month after Universal’s franchise entry.

It is amusing to find that Corman’s $660,000 quickie feels so much more satisfying than Universal’s $30,000,000 behemoth after thirty two years, a testament to the budding talent operating just off camera.

John Sayles’ screenplay subverts the usual notion of heroes and villains, thumbing its nose at the post-Watergate post-Vietnam establishment – the real villain of the film – while presenting a pair of bumbling (but endearing) nobodies as the only barrier between the killer fish and their potential for global domination. Sayles mines decades of past B-movie experience for inspiration, with direct reference made to genre classics like The Monster That Challenged the World and some narrative elements culled from the likes of The Monolith Monsters and The Blob. Even amongst all the low budget monster mayhem Sayles and director Dante take time to garner audience sympathies with simple effective dramatic construction, and build suspense on characters rather than just the promise of another bloody kill.

Of course, this being a Corman production, viewers are treated to plenty of those as well. The effects crew, led by now-accomplished men like Phil Tippet (Dragonslayer, The Empire Strikes Back) and Rob Bottin (The Thing), manage impressive visuals with minuscule resources, bringing a swarm of man-eating fish to life with little more than frothing water, stick puppets and bucket after bucket of stage blood. It’s all remarkably effective, and doubtlessly proved to many an audience member that the only thing worse than being eaten alive by a giant shark is to be nibbled to death by its diminutive freshwater brethren.

Piranha has gone on to become a bona fide cult classic in the three decades since it was released, and there’s honestly not much I can say about it that hasn’t been said already, so I’ll leave you with a bit of obscure trivia instead. The film’s co-producer, and the woman who initially approached Corman about producing the film, was one Chako van Leeuwen, who has since received a producer credit on all of its offspring, from sequel Piranha II – The Spawning to the upcoming Piranha 3D. Prior to branching out as a producer van Leewen had been an actress, and in 1966 starred in Toei’s ultra-camp superhero romp Golden Bat as a woman who is, for a time, possessed by a villainess named – you guessed it – Piranha. It’s funny how things come around.

Piranha was originally released to DVD on Corman’s own Concorde / New Horizons label in 2003, a disc now long out of print. Shout! Factory has upped the ante on that fine release, duplicating its excellent slate of supplements and augmenting it with exclusive content, but the biggest improvement between the two is to be found in the transfer.

Whereas the 2003 release was presented in open matte 4:3, the new presentation is framed as theatrically at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. Transfered from a newly struck high definition master with strong color, contrast and detail, Piranha has never looked better. Damage is limited but more prominent in the effects setups, where it is likely a result of the stock used to shoot them (I expect the effects crew was working with lots of short ends, as was had been the case with Death Race 2000 a few years before). Audio is a healthy 2.0 option that faithfully presents the original mixing – dialogue and sound effects are clear, as is Pino Donaggio’s (Carrie) exceptional score. There are no subtitles.

Supplements are, per the usual, stacked in Shout! Factory’s favor. A feature commentary track with director Joe Dante and producer Jon Davison is duplicated from the earlier release, along with 9 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage (also with Davison and Dante commentary) and a 7 minute slate of bloopers and outtakes. Exclusive to this package is a 20 minute ‘Making of…’ featurette, with input from Roger Corman, director Joe Dante, effects men Peter Kuran, Robert Short, Phil Tippet and Chris Walas, editor Mark Goldblatt, and actors Dick Miller, Melody Scott and Belinda Balaski. Rounding out the package are a collection of scenes shot for the network television version of the film (12 minutes), a collection of radio and television ads, a poster and stills gallery, a gallery of behind-the-scenes stills from Phil Tippet, theatrical trailers in three flavors (one with commentary by producer Jon Davison, courtesy of Trailers From Hell) and a handful of trailers for other Shout! Factory Roger Corman’s Cult Classics titles (Humanoids From the Deep, Up From the Depths and Death Race 2000).

The packaging is of Shout! Factory’s typically high standards, the disc being housed in a translucent case with an attractive reversible cover sleeve. Also included is a brief booklet of notes by Michael Felsher and an awesome outer sleeve with a 3D lenticular cover. The main on-disc menu is reminiscent of that of the 2003 disc and proves to be the only (extraordinarily minor) disappointment of the package, in that the animated piranha don’t attack the menu options after they are selected per the earlier disc.

I remember scanning the old television guides month-by-month as a kid to make sure that I caught this one whenever it (frequently) played – I loved it. What’s more, I still do. Shout! Factory’s new package is another winner all around, and well worth the upgrade for the superior enhanced transfer alone. Highly recommended!