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Piranha [DVD] [1978]
 
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Piranha [DVD] [1978]

DVD ~ Bradford Dillman
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
RRP: £12.99
Price: £4.28 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Frequently Bought Together

Piranha [DVD] [1978] + Piranha 2: The Spawning [DVD] [1981] + Alligator/ Alligator 2 - The Mutation [1990] [DVD] [1980]
Total RRP: £42.97
Price For All Three: £13.14

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Product details

  • Actors: Bradford Dillman, Heather Menzies, Kevin McCarthy, Keenan Wynn, Dick Miller
  • Directors: Joe Dante
  • Writers: John Sayles, Richard Robinson
  • Producers: Chako van Leeuwen, Jeff Schechtman, Jon Davison, Roger Corman
  • Format: Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen
  • Language English
  • Subtitles: Dutch, French, Italian, Polish, Spanish
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: 15
  • Studio: MGM Entertainment
  • DVD Release Date: 21 Oct 2002
  • Run Time: 92 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B00005KFT8
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 21,076 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)

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Reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review

As a producer, Roger Corman has always loved to make low-budget rip-offs of hit movies, and Piranha is his typically cheeky take on Jaws--and, as so often with Corman, in many ways it's funnier and more entertaining than the original. Directed with gusto by schlock-horror specialist Joe Dante and sharply scripted by John Sayles, it replaces one huge underwater toothy monster with dozens of little ones and ups the body count by a factor of 10 or so. Two hapless teenagers, hiking in a remote mountain region, stumble on a secret US military research lab. They don't last long, but their intrusion leads to the release into the local river system of a huge shoal of super-intelligent piranha, originally specially bred for use in Vietnam. Downstream from the virulent little munchers lie a kiddies' holiday camp and a tacky new waterfront theme park. Lunch time, fellas!

Sayles, with his staunch left-wing credentials, slips in some mordant political satire at the expense of the military-industrial complex, and authority figures of any kind come off pretty badly, but the satire never gets in the way of the gleeful black humour. The two leads, Bradford Dillman and Heather Menzies, are fairly pallid, but there are ripe cameos from such cult horror-movie icons as Kevin McCarthy, Dick Miller and Barbara Steele. Pino Donaggio's score impudently borrows aspects of John Williams' famous Jaws theme while never quite infringing copyright. The movie was successful enough to spawn a much-inferior sequel, Piranha II: The Spawning (1982), which marked the inauspicious directing debut of one James Cameron.

On the DVD: Piranha on disc comes with just the theatrical trailer as an extra. The transfer is a respectable job, reproducing the original's full-screen ratio. --Philip Kemp



Special Features

English
Region 2
See all Reviews

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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
5 star:
 (1)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
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Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Fun film, 5 Jul 2004
A spoof of 'Jaws' this is a highly entertaining film. It's got a good cast and great director, Joe Dante (who also made 'The Howling' and 'Gremlins 1 and 2').

Not particulary scary, it has a few moments where you cringe for the characters, but the film is mostly humourous, and is meant to be.

The plot is basically genetically-modified Piranhas escape from where the government was breeding them (to use in future wars!) and go on a rampage on a lake by a children's summer camp.

Great fun!

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Man meddles again, a great film is the result!, 31 Jul 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Piranha [VHS] [1978] (VHS Tape)
This will remind you of Jaws. It is funny and suspenseful and will make you want to watch it again and again. With a great cast including Dick Miller from Gremlins it has everything. Joe Dante directs and it has a great story to it. Its also not very dated and wont go out of date very quickly. Its fx for some of the dead bodies is very funny actually but also gets pretty scary and serious near the end. By the look of the End though you know there will probably be a sequal and there is. It is a class piece of film though and will have you reeling to watch it again.
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3.0 out of 5 stars Great "B" Movie, 21 Mar 2006
By L. Davidson (Belfast, N.Ireland) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
"Piranha" is a cautionary tale about the perils of genetic engineering , yet it manages to inject an element of humour into it's critique as well as portraying the horror of a mass piranha attack. Make no mistake , these are fierce and very dangerous fish and "Piranha" contains some gruesome scenes. Perhaps "Piranha" is also an allegory about the Vietnam War , however I think that may be overanalysing the film a tad. The acting and dialogue isn't the greatest, but the piranhas themselves are superb. What about the flying one that took out the camp leader ! The highlight of the film for me was the sound of the piranhas on the attack; one of the most chilling sound effects I can recall in a horror film.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A GOOD JAWS SPOOF
Two friends go missing, and private investigator Maggie McKeown (Heather Menzies) is assigned to track them down. Read more
Published on 3 Nov 2007 by stuart

5.0 out of 5 stars "The piranhas...they're eating the guests, sir..."
We all know that producer Roger Corman made "Piranha" to exploit the success of "Jaws"--just look at the poster art for Spielberg's sake. Read more
Published on 20 Jan 2003

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