Piranha (1978) Dir: Joe Dante
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Regular readers of my reviews will know by now that I'm something of a casual creature feature enjoyer. I think they can be very entertaining, and this Joe Dante directed horror looked like it would be just that. I expected something cheesy and a bit dated, but very much good fun.
The practical effects have definitely not stood the test of time, though they did at least have some charm to them. There's some bizarre sci-fi creatures that appear once and are never mentioned again, but they were interesting to see, at least. The piranhas are barely on-screen, and they look like bath toys, but I didn't hate it.
The story is pretty weak, and fairly typical of films with a deadly creature created in a lab. There's a lot of strange and amusing little tidbits along the way, and some fairly amusing ones too - its mostly a lot of weird conspiracies and chaos. It also mocked and copied 'Jaws' a number of times. Admittedly, some of this is a little amusing, but not overly, by any means.
Bradford Dillman's unwilling protagonist was rather an oddity, much like the film as whole. He had some quite comedic moments, which I did enjoy, in fairness, but a lot of his acting felt at odds with the nature of the film. Dillman felt as though he was unsure if he was doing a parody of, or a serious, horror film.
Heather Menzies has her best scenes early on, where her character comes across as confident, capable and likable. However, as the film progresses both her character and her acting gets weaker and weaker. In the end, ultimately, Menzies performance was rather middling.
No one else really left a significant enough impact upon me to go into the details of their performances, but those whose appearances were worth mentioning included Kevin McCarthy, Keenan Wynn, Dick Miller, Barbara Steele, Belinda Balaski and Melody Thomas Scott.
Overall, this is a strange horror, with some really quite random moments, but it's not without some merit. There's some exciting action and some charming practical effects, even if they're also quite janky in nature. For a 'Jaws' rip-off, it's not great, but if you take it as a satire, rather than a full-on horror, you should enjoy yourself.
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