Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Piranha Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov July 7, 2013

Joe Dante's "Piranha" a.k.a "Piranhas" (1978) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of French label Carlotta Films. The supplemental features on the disc include an original trailer for the film; behind-the-scenes footage provided by producer Jon Davidson; and Robert Fischer's documentary film "No Trespassing", produced for Fiction Factory. In English, with optional French subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".

What's wrong, boy?

Joe Dante’s Piranha is the perfect film to see very late at night. It is as straightforward as it can be, but genuinely entertaining. It looks dated now, but this, and the fact that it is something of a Jaws copycat, is precisely what makes it so charming.

In the film’s short prologue two teenagers enter an abandoned military station somewhere high up in the mountains. They jump in what looks like a perfectly maintained pool and disappear. Soon after, insurance investigator Maggie McKeown (Heather Menzies-Urich, TV's Logan's Run) arrives in the area to find out what happened to the teenagers. She approaches Paul Grogan (Bradford Dillman, The Enforcer), a bitter loner with plenty of good reasons to dislike women, who lives in a shack. Somehow Maggie convinces him to help her get to the military station where they meet Dr. Hoak (Kevin McCarthy, Invasion of the Body Snatchers), an aging scientist who may or may not have lost his mind. Fearing that he might have killed the teenagers, they drain the pool, which isn’t a pool but a rather large well used to breed piranhas and experiment with them, and accidentally release its content in the nearby river.

This is where the film switches gears because it turns out that the piranhas that enter the river have been genetically engineered to kill.

What comes next are a number of rather well done sequences in which the piranhas attack a fisherman and his son, a not so smart water skier, an elderly man, some kids and eventually a large group of campers at a nearby beach. Eventually, the Army realizes that something might have gone wrong and dispatches a seriously obnoxious general and a notably pretentious researcher who once worked with Dr. Hoak to calm down everyone and figure out how to kill the blood-thirsty piranhas.

Like the majority of the films Roger Corman produced during the ‘60s and ‘70s, Piranha had a fairly modest budget and more often than not it clearly shows. The acting is very enthusiastic but often also quite rough. The mass scenes, in particular, immediately reveal that Dante must have had very little time to do them right. The editing during the second half of the film is also quite uneven. (Dante edited Piranha together with Mark Goldblatt, who would eventually work on such mega-blockbusters as James Cameron’s The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and Michael Bay’s Armageddon and Pearl Harbor).

Despite being somewhat uneven, however, the film is genuinely entertaining. The fact that it never takes itself too seriously actually works to its advantage – Dante goes as far as he can with the story and the diverse group of actors try to impress as well as they can. The result is a remarkably unpretentious film oozing enthusiasm, which at the end is what makes it worth seeing.

There are a couple of notable cameos in Piranha. The iconic Barbara Steele (Black Sunday plays Dr. Mengers, who accompanies the obnoxious general. Paul Bartel (Eating Raoul) is a strict counselor who frequently harasses a young girl who does not like to swim. Dick Miller (Matinee) plays an ambitious businessman. Richard Deacon (TV's The Dick Van Dyke Show) also has a small role in the film.

The soundtrack for Piranha was created by the great Italian composer Pino Donaggio (Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, Passion).

Piranha Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Joe Dante's Piranha arrive son Blu-ray courtesy of French label Carlotta Films.

The high-definition transfer this releases uses isn't identical to the one Shout Factory's Piranha, though I suspect that Carlotta Films might have worked with the master Shout Factory had access to when they prepared their Blu-ray of Piranha. Aside from the different framing, image depth and clarity are very similar. Color reproduction is also virtually identical. The reds and browns are slightly better saturated on the U.S. release, but the difference is indeed very small. There are no traces of excessive degraining corrections. Edge-enhancement is also not an issue of concern. Some extremely light noise occasionally pops up during the darker scenes, but it never becomes distracting. There are, however, a few specks and scratches, suggesting that additional cleaning has not been performed. Also, there are no serious stability issues to report in this review. To sum it all up, Piranha looks surprisingly good on Blu-ray. There is room for some minor improvement, but the basics are indeed intact. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray disc. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free PS3 or SA in order to access its content).

Piranha Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two standard audio tracks on this Blu-ray disc: English DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 and French DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0. For the record, Carlotta Films have provided optional French subtitles for the main feature.

Considering the film's limited budget and how it was shot, the lossless track surprises with a very good range of nuanced dynamics. Pino Donaggio's score definitely benefits from the lossless treatment. The funny vibrations the piranhas produce when they attack their targets also sound quite good. The dialog is crisp and stable. Lastly, there is no heavy background hiss, audio dropouts, or distortions.

Piranha Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Defense d'entrer/No Trespassing - in this long documentary, director Joe Dante explains how Piranha came to exist and discusses his professional relationship with Roger Corman. Mr. Dante also talks about the many directors and films that have influenced him during the years, his desire to edit his own films (like Sam Fuller did), whether there is any relationship between violence in movies and violence in the real world, etc. The documentary was directed by Robert Fischer for Fiction Factory. In English, with optional French subtitles. (40 min).

• Rushes du tournage - raw 16mm behind-the-scenes footage from the personal archive of producer Jon Davidson. Without sound. (11 min).

• Bande-annonce - original U.S. theatrical trailer for Joe Dante's Piranha. In English, with optional French subtitles. (2 min).

Piranha Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Joe Dante's Piranha is the perfect film to see very late at night. The acting is a bit over the top at times, but the atmosphere throughout the film is quite good. The soundtrack by the great Pino Donaggio is also most appropriate for a film of this caliber. As it is always the case with Carlotta Films' Blu-ray releases, the technical presentation does not disappoint. RECOMMENDED.