Piranha/Review

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< Piranha
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Maggie McGowan (Heather Menzies) investigates the disappearance of a young couple. She meets Paul Grogan (Bradford Dillmann) who likes the booze, and he helps her to find the couple.

On a closed down army resort they find traces of the young couple. To be sure they float out into a large pool. A scientist (Kevin McCarthy) shows up and tries to stop them ('coz he knows about the Piranha), but no luck, they get into a fight and he blacks out. The Piranha are loose now. Later on the scientist runs away, takes the car and damages it. Now they can't leave the resort, they have to take a raft. After a while the scientist tells them the whole story. While floating on the river they see a boat with a boy on it, who is screaming for his dad. The scientist jumps in the water and tries to rescue the boy, but no luck the Piranhas are quicker and eat him right away.

Piranha 1 1978.JPG Piranha 2 1978.JPG

Meanwhile, Paul's daughter (who is on a summer camp vacation) gets in trouble and they need to save her. Contacting the army also doesn't help so they have to do it on their own.

Pretty cool flick. Saw the film the last time in the 90's. It felt good to see it again after all these years. There's a fun homage in the beginning to Jaws (1975) where Heather Menzies plays a videogame called Jaws, that was fun. Joe Dante used the Stop Motion technique from Ray Harryhausen for some FX scenes. Cult film siren Barbara Steele is also in it. I saw her the last time in Black Sunday (1960). If you haven't seen Piranha yet then do it now. Recommended.

Reviewed by GBS

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