Piranha apes the plot and exploitable attributes of
Jaws closely but does so in a way that shows inventiveness and genre smarts. In Dante’s film, the unwitting heroes are Maggie (Heather Menzies), a skip-tracer who journeys to a rural area seeking a missing young couple, and Paul (Bradford Dillman), a reclusive cabin-dweller that she fast-talks into helping her. They stumble onto the site of the disappearance, a secret government testing facility with a large pool. They drain it to look for the bodies and earn the ire of Dr. Hoak (Kevin McCarthy). He informs them that said pool contained genetically-mutated piranha capable of surviving in both fresh and salt-water environs — and the heroes have unknowingly released them into a large set of lakes.
From there, it’s a race against time to stop the piranha before they get to the heavily-inhabited lakeside areas. It’s particularly important for Paul because his young daughter is staying at a camp near the lake — and there’s also a new lakeside resort opening further down the lake shore. Maggie and Paul’s task is not easy but it gets even more difficult when the military show up and try to silence them before they can warn anyone else.
The above synopsis is a solid formula for aquatic mayhem — and Dante and crew deliver on everything it promises. However, Piranha rises above the pack because it goes about its task in an intelligent, lovingly crafted way. The basis of its savvy approach is a smart script by first-time screenwriter (and future indie-film icon) John Sayles that layers the storyline with quirky, well-drawn characters that charm the viewer into caring about them. Thus, when the monster-fish attacks kick in, it’s a pleasant surprise how dramatically involving it is because the audience is invested in these oddball heroes.
