Horror Extreme Movie Catalog
Piranha
Theatrical Release Date: 08/03/1978
MPAA Rating: 
Studio: New Concorde
Editorial Review - Amazon.com
Roger Corman produced this shameless Jaws rip-off at the height of the "nature gone wild" boom of American cinema and struck B-movie gold. Scripted by John Sayles and directed by Joe Dante, this tongue-in-cheek thriller stars Bradford Dillman (doing his best Rip Torn impression) as an antisocial mountain man and Heather Menzies as a rookie detective who race a school of mutant piranha downriver. Dante and Sayles provide the requisite blood and gore for this drive-in meat market: a kids' summer camp and a waterfront amusement park await the little beasties. Along the way, riverside retiree Keenan Wynn gets his ankles stripped clean, camp counselor Paul Bartel is chomped on the cheek by a hungry little bugger who takes to the air, and hordes of unlucky bathers are caught in the center of a feeding frenzy. What differentiates this little gem from the legion of similar knockoffs are the satirical swipes at military arrogance and crass commercialism, Dante's energetic enthusiasm, and the bursts of black humor: "Lost River Lake: Terror, horror, death. Film at 11." The culty cast also includes Invasion of the Body Snatchers's Kevin McCarthy as the hysterical scientist guarding the creatures, horror diva Barbara Steele as a devious government researcher, and longtime Corman regular Dick Miller as an unscrupulous entrepreneur ("Sir, the piranha are eating the guests"). The DVD features good-humored commentary by director Joe Dante and producer Jon Davison, who also narrate the 10 minutes of good-quality home-movie footage shot by Davison. There are also six minutes of outtakes. --Sean Axmaker
Drive-in horror show
A Customer Review by C.A. Arthur
I purchased this dog on the basis of a positive review in Leonard Maltin's movie book. It was supposed to be a comedy, a rip-off of Jaws, and filled with sly shots at 1950s scare films. In fact, there is no comedy or satire at all; it's a horror flick for drive-in theaters. A topless woman in the first scene gets the "R" rating--before she's devoured by hungry fish. Lots of blood everywhere. Lots of screaming. It's almost enough to make a couple in a drive-in look up at the screen.
Locals will get a kick out this
A Customer Review by Marcus Speir
This film was shot at Aquarena Springs resort in San Marcos, Texas, home of Texas State University, the school from which president LBJ graduated. The park was once the oldest and most popular west of the Mississippi until more thrilling theme parks were born with roller coasters, etc. The resort used to have mermaids and scuba divers put on shows along with a swimming pig. Some couples were even married at the park in underwater ceremonies housed in the submarine theatre, the "aqua arena" that gave the resort its name.
The gondola rides are gone now but glass-bottom boat rides are still there. The university bought the park in 1994 to use as a preserve and study water and environmental resource issues by founding the Texas Rivers Institute. The area in which it was filmed (on the San Marcos River) is the most consistently inhabited region in all of North America, with archeological records showing a continuous presence for more than 12,000 years straight. Piranha is not the only film shot in San Marcos, a cozy college town in-between Austin and San Antonio, as the films The Getaway and The Ringer serve as other examples.
Viewers will get nostalgic to see the old Aquarena Springs and a time when San Marcos was small and even more laid back and uncorrupted by corporate chains. If you like silly, tongue in cheek flicks on a shoe string budget, you'll like Piranha. Joe Dante got his start directing films like this before he went on to make it big with Gremlins....
Piranha: Related Horror Movie Clips and Trailers
Please note: If there are no movie links displayed then the selected movies for the current page are no longer available. Although we try to keep our content up to date there will be occasions when no movies are available. Feel free to let us know of missing movies via the
contact us page. Certain related horror movies are the results of an internet search. Although we have tried to refine the search results to be as relevant as possible there may occasionally be clips that are unrelated so please be careful what you click on!
Piranha: Related Movies
DVD Release Date: 2003
MPAA Rating:
Directed By:
Lewis Teague
DVD Release Date: 2007
MPAA Rating:
Twelve years ago two incidents occurred which bore no similarity until now. After returning from their Florida vacation, the Kendal family decided their pet baby alligator was too much of a nuisance and flushed him down the toilet. At the same time, Slade Laboratories was conducting secret hormonal ...
more information, reviews and movie clips of Alligator
DVD Release Date: 2004
MPAA Rating:
Happy Birthday to Me typifies the horror genre prior to the self-reflection and irony that saturated the genre in the late '80s and '90s. A solid cast, decent acting, a well-written script, and relatively high production values result in a solid movie that is engaging on its own in addition t...
more information, reviews and movie clips of Happy Birthday To Me
DVD Release Date: 2007
MPAA Rating:
Oh, those crazy days of slasher films, when every summer camp became a potential slaughterhouse.
The Burning was one of the flood of movies that followed the success of
Friday the 13th, and it's more notable today for an unexpected roster of talent than for its success as a horror movi...
more information, reviews and movie clips of The Burning