Piranha (1995) Review

Piranha (1995) Review

 

I thought I was finished reviewing Piranha movies, but I was wrong. Ten years ago I highlighted Piranha and Piranha 3D, the latter being a remake of the 1978 film. Five years later, I reviewed Piranha II: The Spawning, a sequel to the original, which was inferior to both the remake and original, but did you know there’s another remake? For a minute there, I thought the 1978 Piranha might have been a remake, too, because there’s yet another movie called Piranha from 1972!

This is not a review for the 1972 Piranha, which has nothing to do with any other movies titled after the vicious fish. There’s little to say about it, because it’s utterly misleading. A guy gets eaten by piranhas in one random scene, and aside from an opening close-up of a piranha with the title overlaid, that’s all you see of them in the entire movie. It should have just been called “Jungle” because half the runtime is nature footage of every animal in South America other than the piranha, and what little there is of a plot is about an evil hunter who takes a couple photographers into the jungle and tries to kill them. It goes for an adventure-thriller concept, but completely fails at that, too, with nothing of substance. There’s a dull motorcycle race that goes on forever, day-for-night shots that look terrible (an old school technique where they film during the day then darken the picture to make it look like night), and nothing original or interesting or entertaining. The only way I could possibly recommend watching it is if you want to make the remake that I am about to review seem better by comparison.  

The Piranha remake from the 1990s came about as a cheap rehash from Roger Corman, who also executive-produced the 1978 version. The plot is pretty much identical, except a part where a golden retriever jumps in the river and gets eaten alive, which just makes you feel bad. It’s not scary or thrilling, just awful and unnecessarily mean. There’s another part where a severed head of one of the fish is held up, and this is the only new look we get at the piranhas, because all the special effects are just recycled from the 1978 original! Corman was renowned for his frugal budgets, and this isn’t the only time he pulled this trick. I had been under the impression this Piranha (sometimes called Piranhas) was a completely pointless remake mainly because of how it reuses the creature shots, but it’s definitely not the worst movie out there called Piranha. The sound effects for the piranha attacks are much worse than in the original, with what I swear are eagle screeches overlaid with all kinds of noises, but visually, there’s nothing new to say: they look the same.

The characters are not all the same, and a couple of them stand out for different reasons. There’s a scientist who tells the main characters all about how dangerous the piranhas are, then jumps in the water to save a young boy stuck on a boat not long after and gets so chewed up she bleeds to death! Why did she do that? She knew better than anyone how dangerous they were! It’s almost like intentional comedy, except it’s accidental. Young Mila Kunis made her film debut here, and she’s a literal child, which made me wonder when her scenes were shot, because she seemed to grow up awfully fast in only three years from when this came out to when That 70’s Show first premiered, but it turns out she was only 14 when she got the role of Jackie on that show! Leland Orser (Seven, Alien Resurrection) plays a director shooting footage for advertising the Lost River Lake resort, and this sleazy director is the only bit of inspiration the 2010 remake seemed to take from this version.

Is there any reason to watch this version? It would be purely out of curiosity for how it compares to the original. There really is no other reason. You get the same sorts of scenes with people getting eaten, women getting naked, and people panicking. Even without the original to compare to, it’s an unremarkable TV movie at best, and no one should check this version out first if the premise piques any kind of interest. If someone said they liked this one better than Piranha II: The Spawning, I would understand. While there’s nothing as crazy as flying piranhas or scuba divers having sex at the bottom of the ocean, given it’s the same plot as the original just with some tune ups, such as less silly dialogue, it isn't as glaringly bad or as incompetent as Piranha II. It’s also 10 minutes shorter than the original, and therefore leaner, but again, not as interesting or as entertaining.

Overall, Roger Corman’s Piranha remake was not as bad as I expected, but that’s not saying much, and it lacks any self awareness or sly humour. One of the reasons you watch a Joe Dante flick is for that wry sense of humour; the original Piranha, while having a lot less of it than his later films, is still no exception. In ways, this version playing it straight makes it funnier because it’s so bad, but I still would never recommend it over Alexandre Aja’s 3D remake or the 1978 original. I won’t say I’ve definitively closed the book on Piranha movie reviews just yet…I might still one day subject myself to the dumpster fire horrors of Mega Piranha and Piranhaconda!