Piranha (1978)

Directed by Joe Dante [Other horror films: The Howling (1981), Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983, segment ‘It’s a Good Life’), Gremlins (1984), The ‘Burbs (1989), Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990), Trapped Ashes (2006, segment ‘Wraparound’), The Hole (2009), Burying the Ex (2014), Nightmare Cinema (2018, segment ‘Mirari’)]

Sometimes considered one of the better Jaws rip-offs, Piranha is a decently fun movie. It feels at times sluggish, and at times repetitive, but even with those mild drawbacks, there’s no doubt to me it’s an entertaining film with some good political messaging.

If anything, this film is further points out that we never should have gone to Vietnam. It was one of the biggest foreign policy atrocities in the history of the USA, and given the USA’s history, that’s certainly impressive. On August 4th, 1964, the USA claimed that North Vietnam attacked some US ships. It never happened, and led to a pointless war that killed millions of Vietnamese innocents, not to mention innocents from our own country, and why? Because communism was so scary to the USA that they had to attack those who preferred that system.

Wait, what? That might sound like a tangent, but it’s not. The fish in this film were made specifically to be dumped into North Vietnamese rivers in order to kill innocents and end a war the USA themselves started, and they wanted to kill these innocents (as they do to this day) all in the name of “defense.” Oh, and “the American way,” because the American way is to kill innocents, as both Republicans and Democrats have shown for the last hundred years.

To make my personal politics clear, I’m a socialist. I vote third party, and generally encourage others to look into doing the same. Most of the time, though, my politics don’t matter when it comes to horror. I might mention them every now and again, but horror films are generally about escapism, and Piranha is no doubt a largely fun movie.

But when you consider the origins of the fish to begin with, which sounds entirely inline with something the USA might do, it’s hard to laugh, especially as this abomination of a country has killed so many innocents abroad, and continue to do so to this day (our support of Israel, for instance, is disgusting).

This isn’t entirely about my politics, though – let’s talk some Piranha. Solid political messages aside, this film does take a little bit to get going. Things do pick up nicely around the halfway point, to be sure, but when they do, and the piranha begin attacking people in the lake, I can’t say it doesn’t feel a tiny bit repetitive. It’s all still fun, but even so, repetitive.

There are some great scenes – the raft scene early on is probably one of the more suspenseful raft scenes in horror (up there with The Burning and Creepshow 2), and it was well-done. Both the attack on the summer camp, as well as the water park, were great, and though we never really got too much in the way of gore, there was blood here and there, and you could see there were a hell of a lot of injuries from both attacks.

Bradford Dillman (Moon of the Wolf, The Mephisto Waltz, Fear No Evil) and Heather Menzies (Sssssss) make pretty solid leads. They’re entirely different people, but before long, they work together pretty well. Barbara Steele (Lo spettro, Nightmare Castle, Black Sunday) and Bruce Gordon make for good antagonists, and of course, you also get some appearances from familiar faces, such as Dick Miller (Gremlins, A Bucket of Blood), Belinda Balaski (The Howling), and Paul Bartel (Eating Raoul), all of whom add a little something.

Even with the fine performances and generally decent story, I can’t say Piranha has ever been a true favorite of mine. It’s a well-made movie, and things come the conclusion are pretty solid, but when it comes to the late 70’s, there’s so many other films I’d rather spend time with (Halloween, Phantasm, Alien, Orca, The Swarm, and Damien: Omen II all come immediately to mind).

Piranha is still a decent movie. It may even be a little above average, but it’s close. It’s a fun film, but being fun isn’t all a movie needs (at least in this case), and though it’s a film I definitely recommend, it’s not one I go back to all that often.

7/10