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Piranha

USA 1978
produced by
Jon Davison, Roger Corman (executive), Jeff Schechtman (executive) for New World
directed by Joe Dante
starring Bradford Dillman, Heather Menzies, Kevin McCarthy, Keenan Wynn, Dick Miller, Barbara Steele, Belinda Balaski, Melody Thomas Scott, Bruce Gordon, Barry Brown, Paul Bartel, Shannon Collins, Shawn Nelson, Richard Deacon, Janie Squire, Roger Richman, Bill Smillie, Guich Koock, Jack Pauleson, Eric Henshaw, Robert Vinson, Virginia Dunnam, Hill Farnsworth, Bruce Paul Barbour, Robyn Ray, Mike Sullivan, Jack Cardwell
story by Richard Robinson, John Sayles, screenplay by John Sayles, music by Pino Donaggio, special effects by Jon Berg, mechanical effects by Dave Morton, Douglas Barnett, special makeup by Rob Bottin

Piranha

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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Private investigator Maggie (Heather Menzies) comes to the mountains to track down a couple of teenagers (Janie Squire, Roger Richman), and with the help of local Grogan (Bradford Dillman) she trails them down to a seemingly abandoned secret army testing facility that for some reason houses big water tanks.  There, the trail of the teenagers disappears ...

What neither Maggie nor Grogan knows is that the tanks contain piranhas, and that our two teenagers were eaten by the piranhas. Maggie, not knowing that she releases the piranhas by doing so, drains the tanks, and not even a maddened scientist, Professor Hope (Kevin McCarthy), who has been caretaker of the facility, is able to stop her in time.

Hope explains that he has been breeding piranhas that are able to survive in even a cold climate or the sea, and by releasing the fish the world as such might be in danger. So now it's a race against time to save the world from being overrun by piranhas, and the first stop is the dam just before Lost River Lake where the fish might be stopped.

Of course all this leads to a massacre in a summer camp, Professor Hope redeeming himself by giving his life to save a boy (Jack Pauleson), the army and their resident maritime scientist (Barbara Steele) gloriously messing everything up, and Grogan and Maggie being arrested and having to break out of jail. But the real desaster strikes when the piranhas arrive just in time for the grand opening of the Lost River Lake resort and start eating up the guests.

Now it's up to Grogan to save the world by releasing the waste from a local refinery into the river to kill all the piranhas - and everything else that's in the river, actually ...

Veteran genre actor Dick Miller is by the way great as slimey politician, and director Paul Bartel as the head of the summer camp.

 

By today, Piranha is by and large described as a full-fledged parody of Steven Spielberg's Jaws, that big budgeted animal horror trash that was a box office sensation in the mid-1970's - but this is not quite correct. While Jaws was unreflected and unreflecting animal horror streamlined to satisfy the masses, Piranha, basically built on the same formula as the earlier film (which was tried and true even in the mid 1970's), uses this formula to carry political satire as well as genre (in-)jokes, and gives several genre actors the possibility to make fun of typical horror characters. That said, Piranha is not the laugh-a-minute film the word parody makes it appear to be, it still works as a regular shocker as well, it's just the more intelligent and funnier alternative to boring old Jaws and an entertaining and enjoyable low budget horror film that fortunately doesn't take itself too seriously, and shouldn't be taken too seriously by its audience either.

 

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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In times of uncertainty of a possible zombie outbreak, a woman has to decide between two men - only one of them's one of the undead.

 

There's No Such Thing as Zombies
starring
Luana Ribeira, Rudy Barrow and Rami Hilmi
special appearances by
Debra Lamb and Lynn Lowry

 

directed by
Eddie Bammeke

written by
Michael Haberfelner

produced by
Michael Haberfelner, Luana Ribeira and Eddie Bammeke

 

now streaming at

Amazon

Amazon UK

Vimeo

 

 

 

Robots and rats,
demons and potholes,
cuddly toys and
shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

is all of that.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to
-
a collection of short stories and mini-plays
ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic
to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle, all thought up by
the twisted mind of
screenwriter and film reviewer
Michael Haberfelner.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

the new anthology by
Michael Haberfelner

 

Out now from
Amazon!!!