Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		4.5
Overall		4.0

Piranha Blu-ray Movie Review

Nine years ago, my colleague Marty Liebman covered Shout! Factory's first US release of Joe Dante's Piranha (1978) under the banner of Roger Corman’s Cult Collection. To read Marty's synopsis and analysis of the film/disc, please click here.

Don't keep your legs in the water too long!

Piranha Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

For the forty-first anniversary of Dante's second feature and first solo as director, Shout! has performed a new 4K scan of the original camera negative approved by the filmmaker. Unlike Shout!'s BD-25 in 2010, which presented the movie in the 16X9-friendly 1.78:1, this BD-50 displays it in its proper native ratio of 1.85:1 using the MPEG-4 AVC encode. The disc comes with a SteelBook featuring beautiful new artwork of the aquatic creatures attacking their prey. I own both versions and when comparing the two, the older looks zoomed-in and cropped. The '10 transfer appears hazy and brighter (at times). The '19 transfer boasts superior grayscale and looks clearer in the faces and image detail. The underwater scenes (e.g., Screenshot #4) sports a dark blue water that brings out the grain more than the lighter blue on the old. Jim Wright, a film critic for The Record (NJ), complained that Jamie Anderson's cinematography seemed too "grainy" and "overexposed" on one of the release prints. It's my impression that Dante restored his film here to the way he intended it to look. A nice layer of grain is present throughout. Skin tones are a bit darker (sometimes browner on the sunbathers) on the 4K scan. I didn't detect any of the video noise that was prevalent on the older print. The '19 transfer displays fewer artifacts and only occasionally shows very tiny white specks.

A number of our readers own German-based Koch Media's 3-Disc Limited Collector's Edition MediaBook of Piranha and since that DE edition also has exclusive extras, I created a graphical comparison below of it and the new Shout! The 1.85:1-framed Koch transfer looks better than the first Shout! but has more debris than the newer one. You'll notice in #17 that the facial tone is paler with darker light. It also has more of a washed-out look in certain shots. The background detail for the greenery in the backwoods of San Marcos, Texas is lush and well-pronounced on the 4K scanned image. The mean video bitrate on the new Shout! (35000 kbps) almost doubles that of the first US transfer.

2019 Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray = Screenshot #s 1-16, 18, 20, 22, & 24
2015 Koch Media Blu-ray = Screenshot #s 17, 19, 21, & 23

Piranha Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout! has supplied a DTS-HD Master Audio Dual Mono (1568 kbps, 24-bit) for the film's sound track. The lossless audio on the '10 release contains a PCM 2.0 and the DTS-HD MA here is more stable and consistent. The special sound f/x for the piranhas echo what critics heard on the release prints. A review in Variety (and another paper) noted "speeded-up nibbling...an auditory effect for the [piranhas'] gnawing that sounds like an air-conditioner on the fritz." The Los Angeles Times's Charles Champlin, who Dante quotes bemusedly in his audio commentary, wrote that they sound "like a chorale of dentists' drills and Cuisinarts running amok." You may need to turn up the volume on occasion to fully hear all dialogue but I didn't have to resort to the optional English SDH, which were lacking on Shout!'s first release. The great Italian composer Pino Donaggio came up with a bass-heavy score that complements the scenes to perfection and isn't a Jaws ripoff. Champlin mistakenly identified Natale Massara as writing the music, although he conducted the score to Piranha as well as several scores that Donaggio did for De Palma.

Piranha Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Shout! has added a great commentary with Roger Corman and ported over all the extras from its first release. Koch's 3-disc set includes a DVD of the 86-minute documentary titled Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (2011), which is presented in the original English and an alternate German dub. That disc also has additional interviews and an exclusive featurette on Corman. Koch's BD has an interview with Dante titled They are Eating the Guests!. For details of the recycled Shout! extras, please refer to Marty's review.

• NEW Audio Commentary with Executive Producer Roger Corman - at age 93, Corman is thoughtful and reflective abut looking back on his career. He's soft-spoken and a slow talker. This track is moderated by filmmaker Justin Beahm, who asks good questions and moves the conversation along well. Corman shares his memories of the late Dick Miller, Joe Dante's transition from cartoons to films, his early days in the film industry, and many experiences he's had throughout his long career. A marvelous track and a keeper. The track is not scene specific. In English, not subtitled.

• Audio Commentary with Director Joe Dante and Producer Jon Davison

• Behind-the-Scenes Footage (with Commentary by Director Joe Dante and Producer Jon Davison) (9:36, 1080i)

• The Making of Piranha Featurette (19:47, 1080i)

• Bloopers and Outtakes (6 min, 1080i)

• Additional Scenes from the Network Television Version (12:24, 1080i)

• Radio Spots

• TV Spot

• Theatrical Trailer

• Trailers from Hell with Jon Davison on PIRANHA Featurette

• Teaser Trailer

• Poster and Still Gallery

• Phil Tippet's Behind-the-Scenes Photo Collection

Piranha Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Given its extremely low budget, Piranha is actually a pretty well-produced, decently acted "B" feature that presaged many cinematic ideas and themes that Dante would later explore. On his commentary track, the director noted there was a newspaper strike on the East Coast during the film's theatrical run and hence very little press was given to Piranha overall. However, I found no less than fourteen newspaper reviews. (Longtime Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers wrote a lengthy piece for The Journal (NY) News praising the film.) This favorable one by Philadelphia Doily News movie reviewer Joe Baltake stands out: "Piranha is essentially a low-budgeted, successful version of Jaws 2. It's successful because it doesn't take itself very seriously and be­cause it delivers exactly what its intended audience wants — oddball sadistic humor and plenty of gore. It's fast, funny and uses more red dye — or catsup (or whatever filmmak­ers use these days for blood) — than the two Jaws flicks together." Then Star Tribune film critic Will Jones reported that there were actually two Piranha films using the same title that were in pre-production at the time so we should be glad that Dante got to make his. It was a step forward in the genre filmmaker's young career but he'd make an even bigger one three years later with The Howling.

Shout! Factory's tremendous SteelBook package sports a remastered 4K transfer that has to be the best Piranha has ever looked. Its bonus features are richly informative, including the new outstanding commentary with Corman. I imagine that completists will also want to take a bite into Koch Media's CE for the exclusive supplements. The new Shout! comes HIGHLY RECOMMENDED to Corman and Dante's legion of fans.