PIRANHA (1995)
It, uh, lacks bite, but it bites.  How ironic.


  Joe Dante's original 1978 film was pretty goofy and pretty fun, but nothing I can see any reason to remake 17 years later with a straight face.  I mean, how many serious piranha movies have worked so far?  There was Killer Fish, with Lee Majors, but it sucked, though it freaked me out when I saw it on TV at about age eight at my Aunt Linda's.  Gimme a break, I was eight; don't tell me nothing stupid scared you when you were eight.

So, for whatever reason, Roger Corman thought it was a good idea to remake this one, a remake that's pretty faithful in everything but tone and skill.  Dante's Piranha was lightweight but entertaining.  This tries not to be lightweight, but it's not entertaining either, at least not for the right reasons.

Alexandra Paul (that is, the only sub-C-cup on Baywatch) stars as a P.I. investigating the disappearance of a millionaire's huge-breasted niece.  She doesn't find her, but she does find a whole lot of foot-long squealing piranhas (squealing piranhas?) that are adapted to both salt and fresh water.  Then she lets them into the local lake, d'oh!  Luckily, there's this big tank of toxic pollutants on this lake.

These are quite the piranhas.  They can pull you into the water even if you've just got an appendage in there.  They're even charming enough to convince you to just sit there like a dumb shit while they eat the legs you're dangling in the water.  But they can't fly, which is good for that waterskiier; remember kids, it's okay to waterski in piranha-infested water, until you wipe out.

The characters are no less dopey than the script (which, amazingly, restrains itself from mentioning how long it takes piranhas to skeletonize a cow); the person responsible for the piranhas, who you'd think would be more familiar with the dangers of swimming with them than just about anyone, dives right in at a stupefyingly ridiculous moment. (She's trying to rescue some kid who's atop an overturned boat.  If you're in the water, and someone else is on a boat, what can you conceivably do with this person other than pull him in too?)

This movie isn't totally worthless.  There's some flesh-crawling gore, including a look at some of the grisliest leg wounds I've ever seen.  And hey, I love dogs, and I love kids, but it gives me a warm n' fuzzy feeling when I see a filmmaker who has the guts to chew them up with piranhas when it's virtually a foregone conclusion in most films that they'll be okay.  And Punky Brewster herself, Soleil Moon-Frye, is here, and she's charming as hell and pretty hot too (although her one swimsuit scene is not helped by the director's refusal to show her below her shoulders).

But it's still bad.  Rent the original; hell, rent the sequel, if you're desperate for a piranha fix (though, be forewarned, if you mention the directing credit, you'll be swamped with people who defensively cry "He didn't REALLY direct it!!!").


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