Piranha – Collector’s Edition

Summary

“Razor teeth… you’ve drained the pond! You let them out!”

After proving to Roger Corman with their film Hollywood Boulevard that they were capable directors, Allan Arkush and Joe Dante were both given projects by Corman to make their own. Allan directed Rock N’Roll High School and Joe Dante directed Piranha. This film was a huge success and had Hollywood take notice of Joe Dante. The film was made for about $650,000 and went on to do $16 million at the box office. It was so successful that it spawned a sequel and an entertaining remake was made in 2010. Piranha was also the first film to feature a script penned by John Sayles. Sayles would go on to become a formidable writer and director in his own right with films like Eight Men Out and Lone Star. Piranha has maintained a devoted cult following since its release. Shout!Factory gave the film a proper release on Blu-ray in 2010 and recently gave the film a new release from a 4K transfer for the Steelbook. I currently own the original release from 2010, so that is the one I will review here.

As the film begins, two backpackers – Barbara Randolph and David (Janie Squire and Roger Richman) – sneak into a fairly remote area that is under government control. They stumble across what seems to be a large swimming pool and decide to strip down and take a dip. To their surprise, they are devoured by piranhas before they can get out of the pool. A reporter named Maggie McKeown (Heather Menzies-Urich) is sent to find out where the young couple of Barbara and David have gone. She visits the cabin dwelling of Paul Grogan (Bradford Dillman) who lives near the river. Paul is a loner and heavy drinker, but he agrees to take her to the abandoned government site up the mountain. At the site, Maggie discovers some of the backpackers’ clothing and decides to drain the pool. Inside the station near the pool, they are confronted by an older scientist – Dr. Robert Hoak (Kevin McCarthy.) Startled by him, they knock him unconscious. They proceed to drain the pool. They don’t realize that they have drained the piranhas into the river nearby, endangering any living thing in the water downstream. To make matters worse, Paul’s daughter is at a camp downstream led by Mr. Dumont (Paul Bartel) and he refuses to believe that the camp is in danger. Meanwhile, government spooks Dr. Mengers (Barbara Steele) and Colonel Waxman (Bruce Gordon) arrive onsite hoping to cover everything up. Down the river, Buck Gardner (Dick Miller) plans to open his water based resort that is fed by the river despite all the warnings he receives that he is putting everyone who attends in mortal danger.

As you may have guessed, Piranha is an unapologetic  Jaws ripoff. They allude to this very early on by having a kid playing a Jaws arcade game. This is the first of many tipoffs to the audience that this film does not take itself too seriously. It knows what it is and expects the audience to be clever enough to be in on the joke. How seriously were audiences supposed to take a film when the plot involves government funded research to use piranhas for warfare? That exemplifies what I found so fun while viewing the film. It is as weird as it wants to be and all the better for it. The script by John Sayles is slyly funny. It works because all of the actors read their lines as if the ridiculous things they are saying are matters of life and death. In my interview with Joe Dante I was able to ask about certain things I had noticed in the film including the stop motion creature in the office of Dr. Hoak, so feel free to read the interview to hear more about the film from the man himself. The production history of the film is pretty interesting.

When I started watching Piranha, I didn’t know exactly what to expect. As the film unfolded, I found myself chuckling at some of the more absurd scenes and really enjoying the film. It’s a shame that not many critics at the time seemed to be in on the joke. The film was not given the strongest critical reception due to its brazen nature towards the elderly and young being attacked by man-eating schools of fish, but the film was a commercial success that paved the way for the great director Joe Dante. 

The performances in the film rely on some well loved character actors. Barbara Steele is very fun to watch in her role. Paul Bartel has a great cameo. Dick Miller is great as Buck Gardner, which is a total appropriation of the Mayor character from Jaws. They even dress similarly. Kevin McCarthy is always a welcome addition to any film. The two leads – Heather Menzies-Urich and Bradford Dillman – both turn in likable performances. The final underwater sequence with Bradford is impressively directed and the piranha attack sequences are still fun to watch.

The film was helped along by a great score by Italian composer Pino Donaggio. He would collaborate agin with Dante on The Howling. The editing of the film was assisted by Mark Goldblatt who went on to a tremendous career in the field. Joe Dante himself spent days and days in the editing room trying to make the film perfect. As it stands, the film holds up remarkably well. It is definitely rough around the edges, more exploitative than Dante’s later films, and patently absurd, but it is also very entertaining.

Piranha remains a true cult classic and one of the better films from the canon of Roger Corman’s non-unionized independent pictures from New World Pictures.

Video

Piranha was given a transfer from Shout!Factory in 2010 using an MPEG-4 AVC encode in 1.78:1. The film still looks good in this presentation, but I can understand why they went back and performed a new 4K scan in the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 for the recently released Steelbook of the film. This presentation is a little soft and has some specking and a few artifact issues.

Audio

Shout!Factory has provided an English LPCM 2.0 Mono track that capably replicates the original sound design. On the new Steelbook the track has been updated to a DTS-HD MA 2.0 dual mono track. The film still sounds good in this presentation. I had no issue understanding any of the dialogue and Pino Donaggio’s score came across well.

Supplements:

• Audio Commentary with Director Joe Dante and Producer Jon Davison – this is a fantastic commentary. It is very informative and breaks down a lot of how much everything cost at the time while working under Corman’s tight budgeting.
• Behind-the-Scenes Footage (with Commentary by Director Joe Dante and Producer Jon Davison) 
• The Making of Piranha Featurette – this is a really well done piece featuring interviews with Dante, Davison, Roger Corman, Mark Goldblatt, and numerous visual effects artists that worked on the film including future Gremlins designer Chris Walas.
• Bloopers and Outtakes 
• Additional Scenes from the Network Television Version 
• Radio Spots
• TV Spot
• Theatrical Trailer
• Trailers from Hell with Jon Davison on PIRANHA Featurette
• Teaser Trailer
• Poster and Still Gallery
• Phil Tippet’s Behind-the-Scenes Photo Collection

Overall Scores:

Video – 3.5/5

Audio – 4/5

Supplements – 4/5

Overall – 4/5

Piranha is a fun and off-the-wall cult film. This movie put Joe Dante on the map and led to his future work with Amblin. It is an unabashed rip-off of Jaws, but tonally it is its own thing entirely. The film’s script by John Sayles is slyly funny and appropriately absurd. The actors in the film are all well cast and enjoyable to watch on screen. It’s a chaotic film with a winning sense of humor that sees it through. Shout!Factory’s original 2010 release of the film still looks and sounds pretty decent, but the new 4K steelbook is probably the better way to go for fans of the film. I will buy that steelbook in the near future and update the site when I do so.