PIRANHA (1978)

 

(Director: Joe Dante. Screenwriters: Richard Robinson and John Sayles.)

 

Review

Plot: At the height of summer, a pushy, impulsive skiptracer, Maggie McKeown (Heather Menzies-Urich, billed as Heather Menzies, SSSSSSS, 1973), tracking two missing adolescents in the Lost Lake River area, breaks into an experimental military lab with help from a reluctant, local drunk, Paul Grogan (Bradford Dillman, DEMON, DEMON, 1975). While inside the facility, she drains the deadly pool where the teenagers died, unwittingly unleashing genetically engineered, hyperaggressive fish into local waters. Then the military shows up, worsening a bloody, out-of-control situation.

To say any more about the plot of this darkly funny, sometimes gory, campy cult classic (in the best, truest sense) is to ruin it. It’s a gutsy work, nobody—not even children—get spared in it (something that might upset sensitive parental types), an economically shot, fast-moving, lots-o’-nudity, truly-a-B-movie with a love of old horror and camp (not surprising, considering its director, Joe Dante, and its producer, Roger Corman).  Its fish-attack scenes, often shot in extreme closeups (amidst water-cloudy gore) are effective and gripping, something that can be said about all aspects of this grindhouse gem, one worth watching and rewatching, unless you’re planning to go swimming in the immediate future. Followed by PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING (1982).

 

PIRANHA’s other standout players and crew include:

Richard Deacon (INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, 1956), as Earl Lyon, Maggie McKeown’s skiptracer boss, who assigns her the missing teenagers case;

Keenan Wynn (KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER, 1974-75, and THE DEVIL’S RAIN, 1975) as Jack, Paul Grogan’s easy-going friend, who loves fishing with his dog;

 

Kevin McCarthy (INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, 1956) as Dr. Robert Hoak, frenzied, onetime head of a long-dead Vietnam War-era project (“Operation: Razorteeth”) that spawned the genetically engineered piranha;

 

Barbara Steele (THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, 1961) as Dr. Mengers, scientific lead and media spokesperson of the military team trying to contain piranha/their media release, and kill the fish;

 

Bruce Gordon (CURSE OF THE UNDEAD, 1959) as Colonel Waxman, Dr. Menger’s like-minded commander of the military team;

 

Dick Miller (GREMLINS, 1984) as Buck Gardner, a local real estate agent, also interested in hiding the truth about the piranha;

 

Paul Bartel (DEATH RACE 2000, 1975) as Mr. Dumont, head lifeguard—pompous, tough-love aggressive;

 

and

 

Belinda Balaski (THE HOWLING, 1981) as Betsy, the lifeguard who tries to comfort Suzie, a girl who’s afraid of the water.

 

Deep(er) filmic dive

PIRANHA is John Sayles’s script-penning debut. He also played a “Sentry” in the film.

 

According to IMDb, “The piranha [attacks] were done by attaching rubber fish to sticks.”

 

Also from IMDb: “The extras were all paid $5 a day and given a box lunch.”

 

Also from IMDb, Universal studios was going to sue New World Pictures for making fun of Steven Spielberg’s JAWS (1975)—acknowledged by PIRANHA filmmakers early on, when someone is seen playing a JAWS video arcade game. The suit didn’t happen because Spielberg saw PIRANHA, really liked it, and declared it “the best of the JAWS rip-offs”.

 

PIRANHA director Joe Dante later worked with Steven Spielberg on THE TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE (1983).

 

Actor Richard Dreyfuss, one of the leads in JAWS (1975), had an early-in-the-flick cameo in Alexandre Aja’s 2010 remake of PIRANHA 3D.

 

In Anthony Petkovich’s article “If It’s a Good Picture, It Isn’t a Miracle: An Interview with Joe Dante” (Shock Cinema magazine, issue 61, February 2022, p. 38), Joe Dante said that Kevin McCarthy was a Method actor (more so than co-star Bradford Dillman). Because of this, Dillman was “scared” when McCarthy’s character (Dr. Robert Hoak) attacked Paul Grogan (Dillman’s character) when they first meet in the film.

THE HOWLING (1981)

 

(Director: Joe Dante. Screenplay by John Sayles and Terence H. Winkless, based on Gary Brandner’s 1977 novel of the same name.)

Review

Loosely based on Gary Brandner’s 1977 novel of the same name, the film version is about a television newswoman, Karen White (Dee Wallace, ALLIGATOR II: THE MUTATION, 1991), who’s being stalked by a serial killer. When the psycho, Eddie Quist, falls for a police set-up using Karen as bait, she’s almost raped and killed by Eddie, who’s fatally shot by the cops. Traumatized by this, she suffers from memory loss and has disjointed nightmares about her missing minutes. Her shrink, Dr. George Waggner (Patrick Macnee, WAXWORK, 1988), suggests that she recuperate in a remote resort in the woods, Drago, where Waggner can better guide her healing.

Karen and her boyfriend, Bill (Christopher Stone, CUJO, 1983) arrive in Drago. Everybody’s friendly, if occasionally weird, some of them too friendly. One of those people is Marsha, an exotic woman who flirts with Bill. He fends off her advances, but after he’s attacked by a wolf-like creature, his attitude changes. Meanwhile, Karen is still unnerved by her unfolding-memory nightmares and the wolf howls that fill the night, some of them close to their cabin.

Back in Karen’s home city, her co-workers and friends─Terry Fisher (Belinda Balaski, GREMLINS, 1984) and Chris Halloran (Dennis Dugan)─have done further digging into Eddie’s life and death, and discovered several things: Eddie’s body has disappeared from the morgue; Eddie had an obsession with werewolves, Karen, and an area that bears an uncanny resemblance to Drago. . . Eventually, Terry and Chris head up there at different times, and it’s not long before the true nature of Drago’s denizens is revealed, with wild, bloody confrontations that Karen, Bill and her friends might not survive.

HOWLING is an excellent, humorous, and clever update of the furry moon-beast genre, a satire about media and a cautionary tale about sexual repression. Its tone is lighter than that of its source book (e.g., in the book Karen is raped in her own home, and its ending is different than that of the film). Aficionados of werewolf works might especially enjoy HOWLING’s nods to previous shapeshifter films, like the name of John Carradine’s character (Erle Kenton). In real life, Erle C. Kenton (1896-1980) was a director, actor, and writer; one of the films he directed was HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1944), which featured Lon Chaney Jr. as Larry Talbot, the iconic Wolfman of several Universal films. In several scenes of HOWLING, Chaney’s first outing as Talbot (THE WOLFMAN, 1941) plays on a television set.

So many things make HOWLING work as well as it does. Its running time is kept short (an hour and thirty minutes, every scene important to the film).  Its writing and dialogue is sharp, often clever and funny, with an underlying theme of sexual and social repression woven into its various aspects, verbal and visual. Its special makeup effects, practical not digital (HOWLING predates the latter), are top-notch, overseen by Rick Baker (AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, 1981), created by Rob Bottin (THE THING, 1982) and further brought into being by their talented special makeup effects crew.

Its cast is perfect and fun. Beyond Dee Wallace and Christopher Stone (who were married from 1980 until his death in late 1995), and others, everyone nailed their parts.

Kevin McCarthy (INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, 1956) played Karen’s boss, Fred Francis (perhaps a reference to Freddie Francis, who directed 1975’s LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF). Dick Miller (AMITYVILLE 1992: IT'S ABOUT TIME, 1992) played Walter Paisley, the bookstore owner who’s also a werewolf expert. Robert Picardo (GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH, 1990) played Eddie Quist with playfully sadistic relish. Meschach Taylor (DAMIEN: OMEN II, 1978) played Shantz, a concerned cop. Kenneth Tobey (THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, 1951) played an “Older Cop.”

The denizens of Drago include: Elisabeth Brooks (FAMILY PLOT, 1976) as Marsha; Slim Pickens (BLAZING SADDLES, 1974) as Sam Newfield; and Noble Willingham (THE LAST BOY SCOUT, 1991) as Charlie Barton.

Sharp-eyed horror fans might recognize Karen’s co-anchor, Lew Landers, who appears in GREMLINS (1984), another Joe Dante flick. James MacKrell played Landers in both films.

There are several uncredited cameos as well. Producer/director Roger Corman played “Man in Phone Booth.” HOWLING screenwriter John Sayles played a morgue attendant. Forrest J. Ackerman (RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD II, 1988) played a grumbling bookstore customer. Writer/director Mick Garris (PSYCHO IV: THE BEGINNING, 1990) played “Man with TV Guide.”

HOWLING is one of my Top Ten werewolf flicks, worth checking out, even if you’re a casual lycanthropy viewer who doesn’t geek out like I did in this review.