Jacob's 31 Days of Halloween - Day 19: Piranha

Jacob's 31 Days of Halloween - Day 19: Piranha

Two Joe Dantes in a row! I haven't seen the 2010 remake Piranha 3D, which seemed to play a big part in bringing back b-movies for a while there in the early 2010's (Hobo with a Shotgun, Iron Sky, FDR: American Badass, etc.), but this 1978 "original" (much like the large majority of Roger Corman productions) is far better than it has any right to be.

Piranha is a blatant ripoff of Jaws, but it's so aware of this fact that they feature Jaws as literally a game in comparison to these piranhas. There are also significant differences from Jaws, such as the fact that they (spoilers) lose their Quint in the first half hour of the movie. The movie also tends to go on lots of big tangents (always piranha-themed tangents, but away from the main two characters), causing it to feel a bit more like the hyperactive little brother of Jaws.

Heather Menzies (Louisa Von Trapp from The Sound of Music) plays a determined woman who is trying to find the two teens who died at the beginning of the movie, and what's shocking is that her character is actually smart and has agency. She's funny, she outwits bad guys, she's actually the most defined character in the whole movie (which isn't saying a lot, but still). She's somehow more advanced than a lot of the pandering "strong female characters" that are tossed at us today. Everyone else in the movie is having fun but are clearly one-dimensional. Dick Miller (from Bucket of Blood) was in both The 'Burbs and this, so he's getting quite the representation this October (it turns out he's in all of Joe Dante's films, as well as many Corman films).

It's definitely a Roger Corman production in that it's low-budget, short, simple, and an arguably well-told story, despite being very silly and shallow. Check it out if you just wanna have a fun time.