Admittedly up until this year I hadn’t actually seen Joe Dante’s “Piranha” before. And for folks who still haven’t seen it to this day in spite of its apparent cult status, Dante’s horror picture might be a little jarring. Tonally “Piranha” is unusual and quite surreal. The first half of the film is almost like a B dark comedy featuring drawn out bouts of exposition and a small stop motion bipedal fish walking around a secret lab for some inexplicable reason. The next half then suddenly becomes a stern straight faced horror film with the atmosphere amped up to eleven. It’s such an oddity on film that I couldn’t help but enjoy it from start to finish.
Pretty much from the outset, “Piranha” is not entirely taken all that seriously, as director Dante and Roger Corman seem to understand the ludicrous nature of this premise and just run with it. That makes for a perfect killer animal flick that manages to be rather exciting and awfully blood soaked. Two hiking teens break in to an abandoned facility near a small town and decide to go skinny dipping in what appears to be an abandoned pool of water. After disappearing in to the water for reasons unknown an insurance agent is sent out to the small town of Lost River Lake to look for them and find out of they’ve gone missing or are dead. Enlisting the help of the local drunk Paul, the duo go on a mission to find out what happened to the teens, unaware that they’ve unleashed piranha in to the local waters.
After a long drawn out session of exposition and interrogating the local scientist as played by the immortal Kevin McCarthy, little do they know that genetically engineered piranha are loose in the cold waters of the town and are set on a clear path to the local summer camp and beach resort. “Piranha,” while initially a parody of “Jaws,” really does work as a horror film. The allusions to Spielberg’s film are there with one character too afraid of the water to go in to a lake, an ex-seaman whose led a tortured life at sea, and a town mayor who refuses to close the beach in spite of the inherent danger under water. In spite of the nods to the blockbuster, the film paves its own way allowing some interesting characters and tense scenes that work quite well including a log raft scene that brought me to the edge of my seat, and some rather wicked gore that’s still rather effective.
“Piranha” like its future iterations, is all about the lead up to the eventual blood bath that will be ensues on hapless tourists and towns folk and summer campers and director Dante thankfully pays off for the waiting audience. The gore and grue become rather disturbing, especially when small kids become the victims of the super piranha, and it provides a rather dark climax where characters rush to put an end to them and many supporting characters fall victim to the killer aquatic animals. Altogether “Piranha” ends on a dark note and one that sets up an obvious sequel, because in the end a premise like this deserves a follow-up feature. It’s only logical. While the tone is wonky and surreal, thankfully Joe Dante’s B horror film holds up as an intense and morbid killer animal film that continues to deliver with entertainment and blood soaked carnage. Fans of the recent retreads should check this out to cover their grounds.