Jaws Ep. 04 - Piranha (with Jen Howell of Every Rom Com)

It’s time for terror to go small with genetically altered PIRANHA (1978) directed by Joe Dante, screenplay by John Sayles, and executive produced by Roger Corman.

Jen Howell of the Every Rom Com podcast joins us to discuss the horror comedy classic.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
you oh
Hello and welcome to Get Me Another, a podcast where we explore those movies that followedin the wake of blockbuster hits and attempted to replicate their success.
My name is Chris Iannico and with me is my co-host Justin Beame.

(00:23):
Terror, horror, death, film at 11.
Isn't that always the way?
Film at 11.
This is the fourth episode in our Get Me Another Jaws series and today we'll be discussinga 1978 film.
from Roger Corman's New World Pictures.
And joining us is a very special guest.

(00:44):
We're thrilled to have her back on the show.
Jen Howell of the EveryROM.com podcast.
Welcome back, Jen.
I'm so happy to be here.
Thank you for having me.
You know that I was begging you guys to have me on for Piranha even before I knew that youwere doing this series.
I'm like, you know, if you guys ever do Piranha, so I'm really happy to be here.
Oh, we're thrilled to have you.
And it is true.

(01:05):
were, you were from the jump.
You were like, I want to talk about Piranha and I was, I was excited to do it.
We just had to figure out our schedule.
And then it was like, yeah, I want Jen for Piranha.
Absolutely.
For those out there who might not know her, Jen is the host of a terrific podcast calledEvery Romcom, which takes romantic comedies seriously.

(01:28):
And today's film,
has a little bit of romance in it, more than a little bit of comedy.
This is Piranha.
Lost River is lost no more.
Yes, friends, you can be part of a modern ecological miracle.
Acres and acres of reclaimed land nestled in a scenic mountain valley, site of the newlyformed Lost River Lake.

(01:50):
You'll find swimming, sailing, snorkeling.
There's something strange in the water at Lost River Lake.
Something you can't see.
Something you can't feel.
Until it's too late.
started in a Texas pond.
Barbara!

(02:11):
Barbara, there's something in here!
David!
to know if they're down there or not.
What are you doing?
You trained the punks?
Yes, we found You let them out?
They were unleashed into America's waterways to churn quiet streams into rivers of livingdeath.

(02:32):
Keep your hand out of the water.
Ow!
What's wrong with the water?
Dad!
Stay back!
Dad!
Stay back!
They attack and devour anything that moves with razor-sharp teeth that can strip a man tothe bone in less than a minute.

(02:55):
There'll be no way to contain them.
They'll be able to swim up every river system in the country.
There's a school of piranha straight downstream towards your resort.
They'll kill us.
All of us.
Science fiction.
Justin, back in the first episode of this series, you told a story about talking to RogerCorman and that he said to you in regards to Jaws, they're making my movies now.

(03:27):
Yeah.
So like the idea of a Roger Corman produced Jaws-esque movie feels not only natural, butperhaps inevitable.
It's kind of meta in a way.
It's like he created this world of
These crazy monster movies on low budgets and then Hollywood took it and ran with theball.
Absolutely.
And then he decided to follow suit, but that's always been Roger, right?

(03:50):
He's always had his finger on the pulse, especially with the youth market and he knew whathe was doing here.
And he had a great ambitious young director for this.
And I think that the timing was perfect and he managed with this movie to create somethingthat can stand.
up with the best of these kinds of movies, Nature, Ganamak and everything.

(04:16):
mean, this is really a celebrated movie for a lot of reasons that we'll get into on theepisode here.
But I know Roger is also very proud of it.
and Joe, both Joe Dante director are both very, very proud of this thing and what theywere able to pull off with the limited means that they had at the time.

(04:36):
Yes, Joe Dante directed Piranha and he, it's funny because he was in a similar place inhis career that Spielberg was when he did Jaws.
Like both of them had done one feature film.
Spielberg had done the Sugarland Express.
Joe Dante had co-directed the Roger Corman production Hollywood Boulevard with AlanArkush.

(04:57):
And Dante and Arkush had met while cutting trailers for Roger Corman, which is
I think just fantastic.
I can't tell you how many people I've encountered over the years that got their feet wetwith Roger.
it's incredible.
Dating back to the very beginning of what he was doing in his earliest forays into thisstuff, he was standing counter to the studio system, which would bring actors and

(05:23):
technicians in mostly.
mean, this really mostly pertains to actors, but and then they would foster them throughtheir system.
And they would establish long-term contracts that they were locked into.
Right.
And there wasn't much flexibility there, but as a result of all that, there was somethingof a, a stagnant element to what was coming out of that system eventually.

(05:47):
And meanwhile, the sixties hit and there was this youth movement, a lot of independentfilm being made with now portable and accessible cameras to just about anybody who had.
a little bit of money in their pocket.
And so that bred a very ambitious, wildly as adventurous and also counter-culturalmovement.

(06:12):
because at the same time that those, those technical innovations were happening thatopened up filmmaking, you also had the relaxation and then the abandonment of the Hayes
code, allowed
very, very different depictions of sexuality and violence in cinema beginning in the mid60s and into the 70s that films like this, and this is actually fairly tame, I think, for

(06:37):
a lot of Corman films, but a lot of those films could harness that because, hey, theyplayed great in drive-throughs.
And he was hiring the people that the studios weren't interested in, the people that werenot part of the system or couldn't break into it or whatever.
so that, so Rod, to my earlier point,
Roger became a, it was almost like an incubator of creatives and it wasn't just on screen,it was behind screen as well.

(07:04):
And a number of directors that went on to very good careers started just cutting trailersfor him in the very beginning, just like Joe did.
Absolutely.
And I want to say the reason I've seen Piranha in the first place, the reason I firstwatched it was because I was a huge John Sayles fan in the 1990s.
And then he would talk about how he learned a lot about filmmaking from Roger Corman.

(07:27):
And I found out that he wrote some screenplays for Roger Corman and Piranha came into myconsciousness and I immediately went and watched it.
And I was like, this film is fabulous.
They did so much with this budget, like I was led there through John sales, who of coursebecame a writer director.
He's not one of the people people necessarily talk about.

(07:48):
but he's got a great career.
my goodness.
Yeah.
He is one of in my mind to my mind he's one of the best writer directors and he's a littlebit slept on because he makes a little bit quieter movies but he has a fabulous career,
passion fish, lone star and limbo was a run in the 90s that then led me back to Piranha.
Eight Man Out a couple of years before that is one of the best baseball movies ever made.

(08:11):
Yeah.
And also he penned another entry in this series with Alligator.
Yes, he did.
We'll talk about Alligator in a couple of weeks.
A couple of times I've had the opportunity to interview him and he was always soaccommodating and he's very reverent about his work.
He doesn't, I don't know, I just, really love him.
He's someone who's exciting to talk to and very inspiring to chat.

(08:35):
yeah, no, he's terrific.
This was his first screenplay.
This was the first thing he did.
He had previously written a novel called The Pride of the Bimbos about a dwarf who is partof a traveling baseball team that dresses in drag.
At some point, I have to check this book out.
It's apparently terrific.
And that drew him to the attention of Roger Corman, who hired him to write Piranha.

(08:59):
Yeah.
Piranha was a co-production of New World Pictures and United Artists, and Piranha wasinitially budgeted around $900,000, although ultimately, from what I've read, Corman would
cut around $200,000 from the budget, supposedly going to another New World Picture, thedisaster movie, Avalanche.

(09:20):
Which I love.
I've actually never seen Avalanche.
At some point, we'll do it when we do Get Me Another of the Poseidon Adventure and thewhole wave of...
gosh.
Disaster movies.
have to.
Avalanche is a good one.
Rock Hudson.
It's a very weird movie because it at times feels very television.
Sure.
And then other times it pushes boundaries and it has some really bold effects in it.

(09:40):
I love snow movies, snowy stuff for sure.
the winter and that's on absolute like yearly rewatch.
wow.
that's fantastic.
Yeah.
We, that is, that is on the, the, master list locked away and you know, in the, bottomfloor of get me another headquarters, the master list of,
of possible topics from the get-go.
It's always been the disaster movies of the 70s, get me another Poseidon adventure,towering inferno, that kind of thing.

(10:06):
I want to mention also that the piranhas used in this film, they were not real piranhas,but they were constructed by...
It wasn't real piranhas, but constructed by Phil Tippett, who had just finished work onStar Wars.
He created the stop motion creatures for the holographic chess game.

(10:26):
that C3PO and Chewbacca play.
And Phil Tippett, I think, along with Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen, they are themasters of stop motion.
And Phil Tippett came kind of late in that art form because as time went on, the stopmotion was giving way to computer animation.

(10:48):
he had done movies like Dragon Slayer, Robocop, did both Empire Strikes Back and Return ofthe Jedi.
And then as visual effects evolved,
He moved into computer generated images with movies like Jurassic Park and StarshipTroopers.
From what I've read, Tippett wanted to use stop motion for the piranha, but it would havebeen cost prohibitive.
But we do get that stop motion creature in the lab, which I love.

(11:11):
You know who, a surprising place where I ran into one of these fish that was used in thefilm.
I can't imagine.
It was when I went, when I was at Mike Flanagan's house, he has one of the
one of the mechanical fish that survived.
That's amazing.
And he has it mounted on this stand.
And it's in, he actually paid to have it restored because it had been rotting and stuff.

(11:35):
And he loves this movie so much that he tracked this thing down and then had it restoredat who knows what cost.
But it looks amazing as though it was made yesterday.
um Tip of the hat to Phil Tippett.
Absolutely.
The other thing I want to mention about this movie, because it's so...
To me, it's so apparent is that and the creature in the lab is kind of, you know, kind ofkeys into this is this movie and Joe Dante's work in general, it just radiates with a love

(12:06):
of 50s sci fi horror movies.
You can feel it.
Yeah.
And can I can I add to that?
Like, I think like this is definitely get me another jaws.
But there's also like that whole atomic age monster thing.
Yes.
Going on here, because jaws is just like a force of nature.
Just it just exists.
But this has a political element where it's bringing in the government, you know, createdthese piranhas like because of war.

(12:29):
You know, it's bringing in that whole 1950s atomic age monster thing where these are theconsequences of our own actions that have come back to get us.
And that's territory that Joe explores elsewhere when I did Matt Nye with him too.
Oh sure.
Matt Nye is an absolute master stroke, but it's his love letter to the cinema you'retalking about Chris, that movie.

(12:51):
Yeah.
And the atomic stuff you're talking about, Jennifer, that he pours all of that into thatin a very in-your-face way that is so, it feels so nostalgic even for me, obviously not
growing up in that era, but he really hits all the
all the buttons there and it's so funny and so clever and everyone's amazing in it.

(13:12):
So Dante has always kept a foot in his love for this stuff.
I mean, that's not to, not to spill all the get me another tea, but that's another seriesat some point that we'll do is 50s atomic horror, which is probably, it starts with get me
another, thing from another world.

(13:32):
Like that's the thing from another world and my.
My dad loves those movies.
And he always tells the story of he, old, my dad was the youngest of many brothers.
And the story he tells is that he was taken to see the thing from another world when hewas very little in movie theaters and it terrified him so much.
ran home, hid behind the couch and wouldn't come out.

(13:55):
I mean, he eventually did cause you know, he went on to have a family.
Yeah, exactly.
But, but for a while.
Um, remember my mom and dad telling me about a date that they had when they went and sawthe birds in the theater and they were both equally terrified walking out of there.
I'm like, you guys, the birds terrified me that much.
My mom, my mom too, she hated, she couldn't be around birds, eh

(14:19):
I mean, that just shows how at the time the cinema was so innocent.
And that's why that stuff in the sixties that we were talking about was so vital to allthe explosion that happened in the seventies, especially at the, business changed.
Yeah.
But what was being put on screen changed so dramatically and we never, we haven't, wehaven't ever turned back.

(14:41):
No, no.
And all of these guys, Joe Dante, Steven Spielberg, they,
The baby boomers all grew up watching those movies in the theaters and you can feel it,you know, you can feel it in Spielberg and Dante and John Carpenter.
They all grew up watching the same stuff in the 1950s.

(15:01):
And then, you know, and you get in some cases, direct remakes movie, you know, the 78invasion of the body snatchers, you get the 1982 version of the thing and they, they,
they, took the things they,
loved and watched and wanted to make things that would have the same effect.
It's not, it's inspiration, it is not necessarily replication because they're also doingtheir own things and it's a fine line and I think this is why you get so many great sci-fi

(15:34):
movies from the mid 70s through the 80s.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Can I shout out another crew member on this movie too that I just noticed this rewatch?
Absolutely.
Composer Pino De Nagio, who like I did a big Brian De Palma watch last year and he's likeBrian De Palma is like regular composer that often works with him.
I didn't realize Pino De Nagio was on this movie and I'm like, the score is pretty darngood.

(16:00):
And he'd already made Carrie and Don't Look Now at this point, but this is still prettyearly on in his career.
And yeah, I.
great score.
noticed that you guys covered Orca already too.
noticed Orca also had an amazing composer and I was like, whoa, oh these guys are gettingthe big the greats here.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
And we did Day of the Animals as well, had a terrific Lalo Schifrin score who just passedaway within the last couple of weeks.

(16:28):
There are some terrific scores for all of these.
Obviously, John Williams Jaws is the, was, you know, I mean, we all know it, you know,it's but yeah, there's a lot of really good scores throughout these films.
Doesn't it make you wonder if it was intentional that they were trying to at least keepup?
to a certain extent with what Spielberg had done, not just in the story, but also in themusic.

(16:54):
The music.
They could have gone The technical elements too.
Yeah, yeah.
That all kind of is, there is a degree of, know, uh if we can't top it, we at least wannakeep with it.
And this movie does that really well because man, this is just.
This is an entertaining movie.
I had not seen it before.

(17:16):
To be honest with you.
So I watched it for the first time and then have been sort of rewatching it in the dayssince as I've been working on notes.
And the more I rewatched it, I had a similar thing with Orca a couple of weeks ago.
The more I rewatched it, the more I loved it.
Although it's a very different movie from Orca, but the more, both of them, my affectionfor them grew.

(17:38):
just over the course of the week that I was working on notes for this show.
That's great.
mean, this movie for me, it hits my sweet spot.
OK, I love movies that take place with summer fun and summer camps is even a bonus.
And then add horror in.
I don't know why.
This is why I love the Friday the 13th series, too.
But there's just something about people frolicking and swimming in the summer.

(17:59):
And then a terrible thing happened that just really gets me.
So I've always loved this movie.
I think it's high quality, too.
But like beyond that, like that's what I like in cinema.
What can I say?
I'm the same way.
We're all in the same boat as far as camp horror.
is something, there's something about being at a camp.
mean, we covered so many of those movies in our, me on the Friday, the 13th series.

(18:22):
And this is a great camp movie.
Like there's so much good camping material.
And what you said, Jennifer, and I feel the same way that I've always been fascinated bythe marriage of things that are meant to be just offerings of joy.
and the terrifying, like the blending of those two things, or like abandoned amusementparks, for example, are a great example of this, where it's not necessarily terrifying,

(18:51):
but it's a place that was created to bring so much happiness to everyone who went throughthe turnstiles.
But when they die and it's just a skeleton sitting there rotting and rusting with theearth reclaiming it, there's an odd beauty and fascination with that.
And my dad grew up, I've tried to pin this down.

(19:12):
My dad grew up in Wisconsin Dells, which is the water park capital of the world, as theysay.
And really, and he, and he was a guide on the upper Dells boat tours throughout college inthe summer and all this, but that town is so interesting.
So it isn't just water parks.
There's the whole town is attractions and resorts with go-karts and.

(19:37):
whatever else, mean, there's zoos and duck rides where you ride a boat around the woodsand then splash down on the water.
There's just a lot going on there.
And it's interesting to grow up in the vicinity of that, because we spent a lot of timethere when we were kids, because the summertime, is bursting with activity.

(19:57):
is, you walk outside and, or walk down the main drag and you're hearing just the rollercoasters and the splashing of the fists and the.
screams of joy.
But then once the season ends, because it's Wisconsin, it folds up, like it rolls up thered carpet for the most part.

(20:18):
Some things stay open like the resorts, but for the most part, it kind of becomes almostlike a ghost town in the off season.
And there's this weird stillness and oddity to a place just sort of flipping the switch onoffering people the kind of happiness that it's designed to offer them.
And so I...
chalk all of this fascination with things like what you're talking about, Jennifer, formyself, up to that experience of being a kid and going up there throughout the year and

(20:46):
experiencing an area like that in all seasons where most people just know it for summerfun.
Interesting.
Interesting.
Yeah, no, it's, I mean, that's true of resort towns.
You you take, you know, take a Martha's Vineyard or something like that, which obviouslyshowcased in Jaws as Amity.
You know, there's that
there's that fundamental change when it's not the summer season, when it's not the busyseason.

(21:12):
It's one of the things that, I mean, this is gonna sound strange, but it's one of thethings that's interesting about Jaws the Revenge, which the beginning is set on Martha's
Vineyard, but at Christmas?
it's like, oh it has a completely different feel.
that and it's real interesting.

(21:32):
like going down the Jersey Shore in the off season too, you know?
It's funny.
Someone pointed out recently, like this came up, was that Jaws is a 4th of July movie andJaws 4 is a Christmas movie.
Die Hard is a Christmas movie but Die Hard 4 is a 4th of July movie.

(21:56):
Nice.
Mind blown.
Mind blown.
I'm totally suggesting Jaws 4 as a Christmas movie for like, I have this movie group I'min on Facebook and I'm gonna be like, we need to put that in our Christmas Advent calendar
list, so.
Yeah.
My buddy Jake calls it the Christmas shark.
The one that's in there and he's like, Christmas shark.

(22:17):
When they put out the four K's he's like, I'm going to get them all.
But, the Christmas shark, I'm not, I can't do it.
I'm not going to buy it again.
The four K for the Christmas shark.
K Christmas shark.
Other people call it the boner shark because every time you see the shark, it's just likethis stone stiff rod of a, of a, entity as it comes up out of the water.

(22:39):
Well, it looks like the ride.
It looks like the ride from the Universal, which is great when you're there on the tramand the shark jumps out of the water.
Well, that's awesome.
But in the movie, it's like it does not look organic or alive in any way.
So back to Piranha.
Piranha stars Bradford Dillman, Heather Menzies, Kevin McCarthy, who was the star of theoriginal 1956 invasion of the body snatchers, Keenan Wynn, who we saw in Orca.

(23:09):
as well as Paul Bartel, Dick Miller, and Barbara Steele.
And the film was shot in Ocorina Springs in central Texas, which is where it is set.
And we open with this scene that is, I think, intentionally reminiscent of Jaws.
Not exactly, but it's in the vibe of Jaws, because you have this young couple deciding totake a swim.

(23:33):
But rather than taking a dip in the ocean in the summer, it's these two hikers
Who's sneaking?
a facility which apparently abandoned is clearly marked no trespassing and has a fencearound it.
It has a fence around it and they're just like, well, let's go inside and check it out.
place wasn't on the map.

(23:53):
Especially the part where the guy's like there could be raw sewage in there and then thegirl just pushes him in I'm like they're really
Like, if they find this pool, it doesn't look like a public pool.
It looks like a sewage treatment plant, which yeah, as he brings up, like, honestly, guys,you couldn't pay me to go in that pool.

(24:14):
There's not enough money.
another example of couples getting frisky in the worst, most disgusting water imaginable.
And it's night.
You can't even see if it's like clean water.
They've been hiking next to a river so why didn't they just swim in that?
oh

(24:37):
Yeah, they might get my award for stupidest horror couple, I'm not sure.
mean, it's up there.
the couple in Jaws, I he doesn't even make it into the water, but like they're going intothe ocean in the summer.
I mean, you know, they have a little much to drink and that's not necessarily safe, but itwas, it was a reasonable place to take a dip.

(24:57):
Even if it was at night, you know, here it's like, we have to climb through this fence andover this thing.
And what is in this pool that we can't see into it's.
What are you doing?
What are you doing?
I love that it's her who just initiates all of this ultimately.
Yeah.
She just, her shoving him in, in that moment is where you're like, Whoa, she's bold.

(25:18):
And I love that, that it is such an unlikely setting in the middle of what appears to bethe forest at night.
And yeah, we can see it as an audience, but we discussed this a couple of episodes ago,Chris, about lighting at night in movies and how oftentimes
It can be handled a number of different ways, but we're usually seeing stuff that in reallife you wouldn't see at all.

(25:41):
So presumably these two are in pitch black darkness.
It getting into this place that's fenced off and then diving into this jet black waterwith who knows what in there.
my God, it's crazy.
the movie is not trying to fool you because immediately we get a shot of an eye in thewater.

(26:03):
Like it's so like and
We know that there's something in the water and they're in there and the guy feelssomething bite, but it's small.
And he immediately is like, well, he says to the girl, did you bite me?
And she replies in a great little reference to those fifties creature features that wewere talking about.
What do you think I am?
The creature from the black lagoon?
Great.
mean, this is a movie proudly wearing its fifties sci-fi horror influences on its sleeve.

(26:28):
And they think it's great.
And of course that's not going to be the last bite.
There's more to
come and the guy gets taken down first.
hear the girl screaming as a full moon passes by.
She tries to pull herself out of the water, but with no luck.
And we just see a bloody arm fall back.
Which is another nod to creature from the black lagoon because throughout that film, thecreature's hand appears, comes up on the edge of the boat or on the beach or wherever.

(26:58):
And with the big stinger.
that keeps happening.
So I love that Joe does this stuff.
it's great.
It is great.
And we see a mysterious figure emerge from this building.
But by that point, you know, there's nobody left.
He looks out, you don't know, you don't know who it is.
It's just a silhouette in the distance.
And then we get the title card in red with blood spreading out over the water.

(27:19):
is fantastic.
Yeah, the way it tints oh
I miss stylized intros like that.
I agree.
was in our, our, our, our, year, our fatal attraction series.
got on a whole thing about boring opening credit sequence.
I was a whole, I was on a whole kick about it.
And, and I think the good son was one of them, which was the three of us was, was on that.

(27:42):
I was, I got, got a lot, I was back on my boring title sequence bullshit again, but nothere.
Cause here it's awesome.
know, another one that I love is the beginning of it.
I don't love the movie as much as I love the intro is Madman.
Yeah.
yeah.
The red screen with the sort of silhouetted trees.
Yes.
Yes, absolutely.

(28:03):
Like wrapping around the text in the middle.
I think that's just so neat and stylized.
But then Simple can work really well to another slasher and another forest camping typerelated film that I love just before dawn.
yeah.
The opening credits for that are up there and probably my top 10 of all time just because

(28:23):
It's forest at sunset and it's this eerie drone of a synth.
And then you just hear this distant whistling.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's absolutely wonderful.
It's like that It is fantastic.
It's one of the best.
Anyway.
And if anyone out there wants to know more about either Madman or Just Before Dawn, youshould go and check out our Get Me Another Friday the 13th series where we talk about both

(28:52):
of those films.
I highly recommend it.
So then we're introduced to Heather Menci's character Maggie.
And this intro, playing a Jaws video game.
Oh my God, now I looked this game up.
I did a little homework.
This was a real unlicensed video game put out by Atari in 1975 and it's called Shark Jaws.

(29:22):
Nolan Bushnell of Atari tried to get the license for a Jaws video game and he couldn't getit and he made the game anyway.
And if you look, you could see that on the cabinet, the word shark
is in very small letters and the words Jaws are in very large letters.
And here in a movie that is to some degree intended to capitalize on Jaws introducing oneof its main characters playing a game intended to capitalize on Jaws, amazing.

(29:54):
Amazing.
And I want to say, like, if we have time, I can talk more about this later.
But I watched the 1995 remake of Piranha, which is almost the same script and story, butthey just made it very boring.
This is one of the scenes where I noticed that, like, how much better the 78 version didit, because like this whole interaction with Maggie and her boss talking about how she's

(30:15):
going to go look to find those kids that we just saw skinny dipping in that pond.
So like.
That whole interaction in the 1995 movie is in a very sterile office.
And like here, it's so dynamic.
Yeah, it's.
the car rental, he's getting the car rental set up for when she gets to where she's goingto look for the kid.

(30:36):
Yeah, it's a very interesting scene.
And she's playing a video game she has bits of business to do she like loses her planeticket with just what she's talking about how she's great at finding people it just makes
it a humorous and dynamic scene and it's the real Burbank airport apparently to theydidn't even get a fake airport they got a real one.
So like that so this is like the kind of attention to the kind of attention to qualitythat was in this nineteen seventy eight movie finding organic locations and things that

(31:03):
will be interesting to look at.
while you're getting this exposition.
And somehow this 1995 Showtime remake that Corman executive produced just did none ofthat.
And I'm just, it's so sad.
It's missing Joe, first of all.
Yeah, and they also change things from the John sales script.
Like, why do you change a John sales?
Yeah, yeah.

(31:23):
When I did the the shot factory release of this movie, Joe gave me some behind the scenesfootage and there's some interesting stuff that they were just shooting, just capturing
them out in boats, wandering around in the water, looking for locations and things likethat.
And everyone looks so incredibly young that was working on this film.

(31:45):
So they were driven by this youthful energy and
really out there, almost like guerrilla style, just happening upon locations that theywould hope to get access to.
And he told, he tells a story in there about being chased off at one point by some guywith a rifle because they pulled up near his land and they had, and they chased the

(32:06):
production guys off that way.
by the way, there is an official Jaws video game.
It eventually came out on, I think it's PlayStation and you play the shark in it.
that's amazing.
And so you're swimming around and I've only played it a couple of times.
I would love to spend some time with it again, but I thought it was so great that it putsyou in the creatures perspective the whole time.

(32:33):
my goodness.
That's like, it's like the 13th video game.
Can't you play Jason?
Well, the recent one.
Yeah.
The original one that was on Atari.
I think it was Atari or super.
No, maybe it was Nintendo, but man, that thing was awful.
Have you guys ever played that one where I've never played Jason?
All you do is walk through rooms.

(32:54):
It must've been Atari because it's all blocks and stuff, but you just walk through roomsand no one like it's a universally despised that game universally despised.
it's terrible.
And when Jason shows up, he's purple, but NECA made a purple Jason figure a few years agowith a box that looks like the, the Nintendo or Atari game box cover.

(33:17):
which was really clever and I have that stored away.
One of the figures I haven't opened, cause I just love the packaging for it.
But I like when that, they get a license and what do we do with this?
How do we make a guy hunting campers fun?
And you're a camper in that one.
But the new Friday the 13th interactive game that came out, I don't know, like eight yearsago or six years ago was so much fun when it landed because you log in, you're a, I,

(33:46):
There's a number of different ways you can play it, but.
Right.
I knew there was a couple, like it was a, it was one of those multiplayer, you know,things.
Yeah.
You log.
So I would turn on, I mean, I had just gotten a video game system, my son and I, and we,got this game and I would go on there at night and people were, would text and say, Hey,
you want to hop on Friday?
I'll be like, all right.

(34:06):
So I show up in this group thing and then strangers can come in too.
And you can have conversations like actual talking to each other as you're playing.
And they also.
very faithfully reproduced a bunch of different sets and settings from the franchise inthat game.
was amazing and it's dead now, which is so sad.

(34:27):
killed it.
Yeah, I read about that, that they wrapped it up or they sunset it, I guess is the termthat they use for that sort of thing.
God, people loved it though.
What a shame.
It's the only time I've ever really been into gaming was with that.
I also want to mention before we leave the airport, which I didn't realize was the Burbankairport.
I've been there many times that her boss is played by Richard Deacon, who appeared in alsoappeared in the original invasion of the body snatchers as well as Alfred Hitchcock's The

(34:56):
Birds.
another actor with ties to the 50s, 60s creature horror films that this movie is is kindof mining for its inspiration.
And I just wanted to point that out.
think it's really interesting.
Just a final note on this whole thing about these, this group of filmmakers that came upat this time.
This is the same year as Halloween by the way.

(35:16):
Yep.
So we're talking about Dante and Carpenter arriving air quotes at the same time,essentially.
to consider that, that was an interesting point you made Chris about how these guyscarried the movies that they loved and the elements from them forward into their own
films, not to rip them off.
but paying homage and they were all doing it at the same time.

(35:39):
Absolutely.
Which is an interesting thing.
And then when you're talking about bringing actors, the, a current crop of a lot of genredirectors, they aren't pulling as many elements from the movies that inspired them
anymore.
They're pulling people from the movies that inspired them.
So guys like Rob Zombie and these other directors are giving work to actors that they'vealways admired.

(36:04):
and bringing them forward into contemporary movies.
So it's a shift in how these directors are, without speaking to each other, combiningtheir efforts in a way to do the same thing, similar to how these guys were back in the
70s, the late 70s, and pouring their love for the genres that they adore into theirmovies.

(36:26):
So interesting.
It's one of the beautiful things about the horror genre is there is a continuity of
You can feel like generations turning and you can feel trends, you know, kind of waxingand waning and, and, things building off of one another and things that go out of fashion

(36:47):
and then come back into fashion in a new way.
Uh, and it's just, it's one of the things I love about horror as a genre is it's, there isobservable characteristics that you can trace over decades.
yeah.
So next we meet our other main character, Paul Grogan, played by Bradford Dillman.
And he's a divorced guy living in a cabin by himself.

(37:10):
Although he does mention that his daughter lives with him most of the time, but hisdaughter is at camp, which we'll get to.
And his friend Jack, played by Keenan Wynn, brings him booze.
A lot of booze!
Enough to make you wonder how he got custody of his daughter, actually.
Well, I get the impression from what he says, his wife took off.

(37:33):
Yeah, like she went, like Meryl Streep in Kramer versus Kramer.
She was the one who left and he was there just trying to take care of his daughter thebest he could and, you know, drink while he can.
Although, I mean, this guy's a really good dad.
We'll get into it further.
But he read his daughter Huckleberry Finn and then built her a raft.

(37:56):
I mean that's something!
Yeah, this is true.
This he does seem like a very good dad I just think it's like this the whole thing of himbeing a heavy drinker is referenced by like other people in the story like the camp
director later will be aware that he is a drinker a cop a random cop they encounter isaware that he's a drinker so like This guy's got a bit of a problem here like but but I

(38:17):
mean that makes him an interesting character You know like the 95 movie took out thischaracteristic for him and made him just like a reclusive writer and I'm like
Dare to make your character complex, come on.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And then Maggie, she shows up in her really bad condition rental Jeep.
Wait, I'm sorry, before we get to that, really want to put in one thing about the scene,the scene where he meets Jack.

(38:41):
Jack makes this really great speech about the river and how much he loves the river.
The old man who has the dog Brandy.
I bet you miss it, Jack.
I bet you miss selling whatever it was, that plastic fruit.
Oh.
Cut the river.

(39:03):
Wakes me up in the morning.
Excuse me, I'm Beth.
Does my laundry.
Gives me my dinner.
Puts me to sleep real gentle.
I got my river.

(39:24):
Got Brandy.
Oh
What do you got up here?
I got scotch, gin, bourbon, and tequila.
What's it to you, anyhow?
It gives you this idea of the beauty and wonder of nature and how much he treasures theriver itself as a natural environment without hitting you over the head with it really.

(39:54):
But it's sort of an environmental message.
And later in the movie, we're going to see the river, polluting the river of just beingseen as something, well, we'll just do that.
It doesn't matter.
And so I think it's definitely trying to make a point here.
for sure, for sure.
And it's a great speech by Keenan Wynn, who's a terrific actor.
He only was on a couple of days for this movie.

(40:14):
We'll get to another scene with him in a little bit.
he's great.
And he's also in Orca as the first mate, who was kind of a jerk.
Here, he's a very likable, kind of endearing character who's got this great feeling aboutthe river and his place alongside it.
It's terrific.

(40:35):
Maggie soon shows up in her really bad condition rental Jeep.
We know it's a rental because her boss spent a while at the rental counter, but like it'soverheating before she even gets anywhere.
Like I would be so pissed if I rented this thing.
And you know, the Hertz counter is very prominent.
I bet the Hertz people loved that.
my God.

(40:56):
But she comes up, meets, you know, she just basically kind of barrels her way into Paul'shouse.
Hi, I'm Maggie McGowan.
I work for a skip tracing company.
What's that?
We find missing people.
Did my ex-wife send you?
No.
oh I'm looking for pair of teenage kids.

(41:17):
Some friends of theirs said that they might have gone backpacking up here.
Well, I haven't seen them.
You talk to sheriff's people?
They said it was a big mountain.
Right, it is.
Well, I figured they may have followed along the river.
Are there any places to swim near here?
Well, if they drowned, they'd be swept down at the dam, you see.

(41:38):
So you're starting at the wrong end.
Boy, you're the wrong end, all right.
Look, am I interrupting something?
I mean, this is kind of important.
Hey, you cool your jets, lady.
I didn't axe murder your young couple.
I can't help you.
I haven't seen them.
He's like, well, there's nobody down there and there's nobody up there, but there's an oldarmy test site and she's like, she basically is like, bring me to it.

(42:03):
And he's like, I'm not going to bring it to it.
And the next scene you immediately cut to them going up there.
Uh, because clearly she has, uh, she has the ability to make him do things that he doesn'totherwise want to do.
funny thing is they have like almost what you would call in romance, they have what'scalled the grumpy sunshine trope, which is like where one member of a couple is like
grumpy and kind of irritable and maybe an introvert.

(42:26):
And the other one is like sunshine, she's upbeat, optimistic, and they kind of pull thegrumpy one out of their shell.
Like it's not quite that, but it approaches that they have that kind of energy betweenthem.
And the romance here is not front and center because the movie isn't about that, but it isthere.
And we'll talk about a scene with the two of them in a short while.

(42:49):
But first they have to go up to the army facility and they search.
I want to mention the funny thing to me is the one thing he brings on this little trek ishis canteen, which he fully admits does not have water in it.
They search this facility.
where the two kids went swimming.
find a locket that belongs to the girl and they searched this facility.

(43:11):
This is where we get that fantastic stop motion creature, which they don't see, but it's,it's lurking around and it reminds me of the Ymir from 20 million miles to earth, a
classic Ray Harryhausen film.
And it's just, it's such a great little bit with the, with the stop motion creature that,that they wanted to put in because Phil tipped.

(43:35):
wanted to do that and I think it's just so great.
Honestly, like it makes no sense and in some ways it's like a bad decision, but it's oneof those bad decisions that makes the movie perfect because it's bad if that makes sense.
You know, it's like one of those off kilter edges that hasn't been sanded off and too manymovies are too sanded off these days, I think.
yes, I agree 100%.

(43:56):
It's not, I wouldn't quite call it a bad decision.
I might call it an illogical decision.
Yes, yes.
There isn't, my, I have friends who are, who teach screenwriting and they would be like,get that out of there.
It has no purpose.
But I'm like, its purpose is to just add a little strangeness to this world.
also like the little like weird monster that like in the tank who's just kind of he'salmost like the one that's walking around the ground but he's just got he's in the tank he

(44:23):
looks like a little dinosaur he opens his mouth kind of sadly and then after that BradfordDillman says we got to get out of here this place gives me the creeps and they cut back to
the little sad guy and it's almost like he took it personally like um
Oh God, oh how wonderful.
This reminds me of Flight of the Navigator.
I have not seen that in like since it, I think since it came out in movies.

(44:48):
Oh man, it's a fun one that my son was really addicted to for a while when he was youngerand when this kid ends up on a spaceship is the elevator pitch on this and when he gets on
there, there are stop motion.
There's all kinds of animatronic and stop motion.
creatures living on the ship, just sort of in jars and shelves and hanging off of things.

(45:10):
This really reminded me of that.
And it's such an, it's a touch that didn't need to exist here, like you were saying, butit adds so much to it.
And it's, it's a tribute to Harryhausen.
It's a tribute to history.
This whole movie is a tribute to history and it's not just an exploitation of jobs.
Yeah, no, it's got a lot going on and it is richer for it.

(45:35):
There was, I want to mention a flight of the Navigator.
There was a weird mini trend in the 80s from like 84 to 86.
I kind of get fixated on these like mini trends when they do crop up of movies aboutsending kids to space.
Space camp.

(45:55):
Space camp?
We talked about the last Starfighter way back when we did our Star Wars series and anotherJoe Dante movie, Explorers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's just, we'll do something with that at some point.
So they searched a facility and in an effort to find the bodies, Maggie hits this switchthat drains the pool that is outside.

(46:19):
It's so terrible.
And then immediately Kevin McCarthy shows up.
basically doing the same deranged character he played at the end of like his he'sbasically in the same state that he is at the end of the original invasion of the body
snatchers like what did you do it's they're out they're loose and it's amazing
I listened to the DVD commentary and apparently the actor was taking, Kevin McCarthy wastaking it very seriously and like off screen he was gearing up to do this shot by saying,

(46:47):
it's the end of the world repeatedly.
it's fantastic.
He was just psyching himself up to just be apocalyptic in this scene.
But I gotta say, like it really.
It's really sad that like honestly this whole movie was basically caused by Maggie.
Like granted they shouldn't have been making killer pranas in the army test facility inthe first place but like who?

(47:09):
Who?
Like forget like the skinny dippers jumping into the pool.
Who is releasing the water into like who knows where in a weird test facility where peoplejust died?
It's amazing.
It's amazing.
Like it's just, it's like what?
It is a cascade.
This movie, the first act of this movie is a castating series of bad decisions from the,from the, from the kids at the beginning to Maggie emptying the tank.

(47:36):
Uh, it's, it's, it's incredible.
It's incredible.
So they find skeletons at the bottom of the pool and they discover the pool was filledwith salt water and that it drains to the adjacent river system.
And Kevin McCarthy, Paul knocks him out, but he wakes up.
He immediately steals Maggie's Jeep and crashes it.

(48:00):
And I'm looking at it.
like, I hope she got rental insurance.
Is that a thing in 1978?
I don't know, but I hope so.
I mean, they gave her a pretty shitty rental car to begin with, but still.
And Kevin McCarthy, plays Dr.
Robert Hoke, who is disturbed enough that they tie him up as he continues to rant.

(48:20):
About what what we're soon to learn are mutant piranhas that Maggie has let loose Yeah,but before that before all he's tied up and they could take him back to Paul's place They
tie him up in the other room and we have this terrific character scene between Paul andMaggie
How long we married?

(48:43):
ten years.
She was just 17 when we eloped in her father's car.
And we thought we had the world by the balls.
Where did you live?
In town.
I worked in a smelting operation down river.
Then the government closed us down and said we were killing too many fish.

(49:04):
They gave it to the Army.
And the Army sold it to some resort outfit.
So you know that somebody was making a bundle somewhere along the line.
How do you make a living now?
Back pay, unemployment.
I'm gonna have to go to work come September.
My daughter in saddle shoes.

(49:26):
Does your daughter live with you?
Yeah.
It's room.
You're so tense.
I guess I'm not used to being around people.

(49:50):
That's obvious.
I've been trying to get away and cover for five...
And there's just so much really good character and plot stuff there.
We learn about Paul, that his wife left him and that his daughter is at the summer camp.
And we also learn he used to work a smelting plant that closed, that was closed by thegovernment and sold to a resort.

(50:17):
So we start to learn about the shady relationship.
between private business and the government.
That's going to figure into the movie later, but we get the first taste of it here in avery organic way.
Yeah, it's a very smart screenplay.
Apparently, John Sayles rewrote pretty much everything from the initial story that theyhad.
Yes, which he did again for Alligator, which we will talk about in a couple episodes.

(50:41):
The same situation where they had a script and he basically rewrote it from the jump.
I love the last bit of this conversation with them and this is where I was like, it's alittle bit romantic.
I'm just not comfortable around people and her reply of that's obvious, I've been tryingto hit my way under the covers for five minutes now.

(51:04):
She must really just go for the lumberjack type because they don't really know each othervery well yet.
Although I guess they have kidnapped somebody together so I guess that could be a lie.
kidnapped somebody, they've released mutant piranha into the water system together.
I mean, that's a meet cute right there.
I mean, that's what it is.
Yeah, also I want to mention in his cabin, he's got some weird art.

(51:31):
There's like these two monkey statues on the table.
They look like they're wearing hats.
ah I don't know.
It's like just the production designer was having a lot of fun.
putting that cabin together.
What I heard in the commentary is that they just found cabins and they didn't do much tothem.
it could be this was just the random person's cabin that they filmed in just looked likethat.

(51:54):
It could have been production design.
I don't know.
But that was what they said in the commentary.
Yeah.
I think that's great.
I think it's great.
So the next day they journey down the river on this log raft that Paul built for hisdaughter after she read Huckleberry Finn, although they never tried it because she's
afraid of the river.
And the log raft is such a perfect mode of transportation for this movie.

(52:17):
And it will lead to one of my favorite set pieces.
Like it's, it's so great.
We also see the daughter at camp.
Like the daughter is at the lost river camp.
That's going to be one of our significant locations.
And at the camp we'll basically focus on Paul's daughter, Susie, and two counselors, Betsyand Laura, as well as the camp director, Dumont, played by New World stalwart, Paul

(52:40):
Bartel.
And Paul Bartel is so fantastic as the head of the camp.
He is just having a grand time playing this character.
all the best lines too, like he has so many great lines like Susie's afraid of the water,she doesn't want to go into it.
And one of the counselors is talking about, but she's really good at handicrafts.

(53:00):
And then Paul Bartel goes, handicrafts don't take any nerve, any intestinal fortitude.
Do you know what that means?
He's so hard on that kid, that poor child.
This is totally a kind of like teacher or coach that existed at a certain point I had afew relics like that in my school days who would treat kids like that So I totally totally

(53:26):
recognizable character to me.
I also speaking of recognizable This is totally off topic I guess but like Suzy looksalmost identical to what I look like at age eight and I was afraid of water at age eight
So I look at this character and I'm like, it's me
It means.
my goodness.
What other line that he's got that is just, it's one of the best lines.
People eat fish.

(53:48):
Fish don't eat people.
You want to bet pal?
We're going to find out that's not necessarily the case.
then later on you have a great bit where, where, cause even the counselors clearly don'tlike this guy cause Susie and Betsy are throwing darts at his picture.
It's, it's just fantastic.
And Suzy is smart, like she's the only one who gets a bad vibe off of this water.

(54:13):
There's actually a great little arc with Suzy and her fear of water and what she's willingto do and it's terrific.
And can I, I'm just gonna put into that Melody Thomas who plays the blonde counselor islike a 70s Fox.
She is like the platonic ideal of a 70s hot woman.
That's, it's a little shallow of me, but I'm just gonna put that in there.

(54:33):
No, she's got a Farrah Fawcett kind of like the hair and honestly, both of the counselorsare really attractive.
I will be completely honest.
There's something about that 70s feathered hair that is just fantastic.
I don't know.
oh to Chris and his hair.
Oh, God.
Yeah, it's true.
I don't even realize most of the time.

(54:54):
And then I'll say a thing and be like, she's got, it all comes back to that line, a SamMalone line from Cheers.
Good looks may open doors, but good hair blows those doors off their hinges.
Ha ha
So we have a scene with Keenan Wynn where he's sitting on his small dock and is attackedby the piranha.

(55:15):
it's a great little, it's like a mini version of there's the dock scene in Jaws.
Here it's like, he's just kind of sitting there.
He has his dog, he's hanging out and the furiousness with which he screams as like thepiranha start eating his feet.
It's like this movie can be at the same time,

(55:38):
have a light touch and a fun touch, but then it can also be genuinely like there's genuinehorror moments in it.
Like him screaming and the piranha are, you know, like, it's like, holy shit, you know?
And they've got their little piranha noise, I've tried to duplicate.
don't know if I can do it, but it's kind of like...

(56:01):
That is fantastic.
That's a swimming chicken.
Combined with like a dentist drill, like it's kind of, there's almost a slightlymechanical feel to it.
But I love your attempt.
different levels to it.
there's the main thing is the but there's something under that too.
So I have I can't do two sounds at once, unfortunately.

(56:21):
I think that too, when you talk about the terror, there's an ingrown, I don't know ifthat's the term, there's an inherent way to relate to more audiences here than with Jaws.
Because not everybody lives by the ocean.
Not everybody has even ever been to the ocean, but everybody lives by lakes and streamsand rivers.

(56:46):
mean, there's a...
a network of veins of water running all around our country.
And so it is it is very
Yeah, and these are piranhas that we find out can go basically anywhere.
They can survive in the cold, can survive in water, oh anywhere.
So like it's a real threat.
And we should mention that in real life, piranha don't really eat people.

(57:09):
Like that doesn't happen.
not like you may get a little nibble, but like people dying from piranha attacks is not athing.
But as we're about to learn, these are mutant piranha.
So Paul Maggie and Dr.
Hoke, they journey down the river on the log raft and we learn that he worked forsomething called Operation Razor Teeth, a program to genetically engineer

(57:34):
mutant fish to destroy the river systems of North Vietnam.
The government paid you?
Of course they pay.
Whether it's germ warfare, the bomb, chemical warfare.
There's plenty of money.
Special agencies.
They pay.
They pay a lot better than they do in private research.

(57:57):
For raising fish.
No, It's a of genetics.
Radiation, selective breeding.
They called it.
Operation Razor Teeth.
What was it all for?
To destroy the river systems of the North Vietnamese, our goal was to develop a strain ofthis killer fish that could survive in cold water and then breed at an accelerated rate.

(58:27):
Get everything blank check and then the war ended.
You sound disappointed
They poisoned the water.
After all that work.
Poisoned the water.
But some survived.
We developed a lot of mutants and a few of them were able to resist the poison.

(58:50):
They ate their own, their own dead.
And then began to breed.
Like some wild species.
Suddenly there were hundreds, maybe thousands.
work,
Now there's a couple of really significant points here that I want to talk about.
First, this is the first instance in this series, and it's something we're going to seeagain and again, that the animals here are mutant animals.

(59:19):
Like animals that either intentionally or unintentionally have been mutated to be largeror more aggressive or behave in ways that those animals usually don't.
The shark in Jaws was just a big shark.
But here they are a mutant piranha and we will get more mutants as this series goes on.
And you could justify anything if an animal's a mutant.

(59:42):
The second point, and I think this is also significant and it comes in here, this moviereally feels like a product of the 1970s and the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate disillusion
with government.
Not just its abilities, but its actual intent.
So like when the army gets involved, not only unable to solve the problem, they'reactually a hindrance to solving the problem.

(01:00:08):
Yeah i think that's a really significant reason to that i like the movie it feels likethat grounds it in some sort of meaning you know.
for sure.
Like this was a time when people not only didn't trust their government to do the rightthing or to successfully execute a thing, it wasn't simply, the government, they can't get

(01:00:28):
anything right.
It was the government's interests are not the interest of the people, which honestly feelslike, uh I hate to say it, but it's a perennial theme.
And it's back again here in the mid 2020s recording this.
This podcast.
Oh my.
Would that these movies would someday become irrelevant?

(01:00:48):
Yeah.
what would that they were, you know, and it's one of the things that separates this era ofcreature features from the fifties.
Because in the fifties, the government, and there may be exceptions that can be pointedout, but in general, the government entities of the fifties, whether it's the army or just

(01:01:11):
the government in general, are genuinely like...
often heroic, they're the ones trying to protect the people.
It is much more sort of kind of post-World War II, hey, we just beat the Nazis, look whatwe can do.
And now here we're in the post-Watergate, post-Vietnam era where the government isn't justunable to do a thing, it is actively trying to do something that is bad for people.

(01:01:42):
Yeah, and then to cover it up.
Yeah.
And then to cover it up.
So we have a scene with a father and a son being attacked in a canoe by the mutantpiranha.
The canoe turns over and you have the kid kind of clinging to the bottom and you know, theraft with our heroes is going to come across this floating canoe and a distraught Dr.

(01:02:05):
Hoke jumps into the water to rescue the kid, but the piranhas are there and...
uh
is going to fall victim to his own creations as he's trying to get the kid on the raft.
Which brings me to one of my favorite moments in this movie.
And it is both incredibly suspenseful while at the same time being kind of absurd.

(01:02:31):
So Paul and Maggie, they have Hoke's body on the raft.
They fail to notice that blood from his hand is dripping into the water.
And that brings the piranhas.
and they start attacking the raft from underneath, chewing through the ropes that hold thelogs together.
Remember, this raft is authentic.

(01:02:51):
There's no nails.
It's just all tied together.
And the raft is falling apart as they're trying to get to the shore.
It is fantastic.
Yeah and it's really done with editing i think for the most part like they really that wasreally smart editing in the sequence and i know jodan do mark goldblatt was the other
editor i think.

(01:03:11):
Yeah he jodan day worked with him though and it's just so well done because really whatthey filmed probably didn't look like much until it came together in the editing room i
would say.
It's funny because the other thing about this movie is that when they were on location inTexas, Joe Dante did not have the ability to watch dailies.
So he had no idea if the stuff that they were shooting was really going to work.

(01:03:32):
A lot of it came together in the editing room.
And this scene is, I mean, it's so good.
But at the same time, they're chewing through the ropes, which is completely ridiculous.
Never have fish do that.
It's so great and so absurd and yet so effective and intense.
This, to me, it encapsulates this movie that is intense and ridiculous and it's both atthe same time and that's amazing.

(01:04:00):
And this movie is not afraid to traumatize children because they decide they need to liketopple, hook over the side so the official stop, you know, biting the raft is the theory.
Yeah.
But but like the kids like, no, that happened to my dad.
No.
And the kids like, man, the kid is so traumatized.
there's going to be so many traumatized kids by the time this movie is over becausethey're going to get to that camp and it's fantastic.

(01:04:24):
So the army arrives led by Colonel Waxman, played by Bruce Gordon and Dr.
Mengers, played by horror legend Barbara Steele.
And Barbara Steele doesn't have a big part in this, but she's got a couple of greatmoments, including one where she's talking to Maggie about like, you know, if she and

(01:04:47):
you were friends with Dr.
Hoke and she replies, let's just say we're a great deal more than that.
She she's she's got this little like smirk the whole time, but especially that oneparticular scene we'll talk about later.
But my God, she's she's great.
Yeah, she's she's a fantastic asset to this movie.
Yeah.
And they're meeting them.

(01:05:08):
They're meeting them at this dam.
Yeah.
Is that where they the army at this dam?
Like they've been trying to warn the people at the dam not to let the water through.
Right.
But then they remember the maze that they've got in the in the test site.
And they're like, shit, maybe the piranha will figure out.
to go the other way.
It's like a whole thing.
that is because that and as something thank you for that set up because it brings tosomething I wanted to bring up in that this movie has an absolutely terrific map of the

(01:05:37):
river system and a really good close up shot of it.
I really like when movies are specific and consistent about their geography and this moviehas that in spades.
It's great.
I freeze framed on that map for sure.
And using that map, that's where Paul realizes the product could, they could go around thedam and into the man-made Lost River Lake, home to both the camp and the newly opened

(01:06:05):
Ocarina Springs Resort.
So they decide that the army's not going to do anything.
Maggie distracts one of the guards so she and Paul can escape.
and the guard, the guard played by John sales, by the way that.
Yes, indeed, the guard played by John Sayles.
And she does so by pointing up to the sky saying, hey, look, it's Superman, and thenopening her shirt.

(01:06:28):
Now, for a New World picture, this movie is fairly tame as far as nudity.
There's not a lot.
There's a little bit.
uh But this moment where she opens her shirt up to distract the guard, uh I want tomention it's not actually Heather Menzies, that insert shot.
That was rather a waitress from the Holiday Inn where the crew were staying.

(01:06:49):
Stunt boobs.
But you know what else is great about this scene?
Like she's, actually put in like she's before they're going to go distract this guard.
says, what if he's gay?
And then Bradford Dillman goes, then I'll distract him.
I love that in 78, that was a pretty, and it's not like they're being homophobic in theleast.
It's not a homo.
They're being progressive in that line.

(01:07:10):
it's, it's
forward thinking for 1978 for sure.
Way to go sales.
Absolutely.
But Paul and Maggie, they don't get far.
They're pulled over and thrown in jail, which is made worse by the Colonel calling thesheriff to make sure they stay there because the Colonel is an investor in the Aquarina
Springs Resort and he doesn't want Paul and Maggie interfering with the grand opening.

(01:07:34):
It's actually worse than the authority figures in Jaws.
Yes yes it's ridiculous it's like because there's a reasonable you could almost say thatokay there's a reasonable idea that the shark isn't gonna kill that many people even if
the shark does come.
just don't know.
The shark could go away.
You just don't know.
This is like piranhas like they could seriously like that's the things piranhas are insome way scarier because Jaws has one mouth.

(01:07:56):
Right.
But these piranhas are so many little mouths like they can be all over the place at once.
So I don't know.
Yeah.
There's maybe less of a chance of you dying at the teeth.
I should say at the hands.
They don't have hands.
At the teeth of the piranha.
my God.
uh But there's less of a chance of dying, but there's certainly a lot of chance ofmaiming.

(01:08:21):
you know, like they can chew you up.
ah There's so many great little moments in this movie, like Betsy.
that one of the two camp counselors, she's telling this campfire story to the kids and itis positively deranged.
The witch and the demons of the forest scoured every corner of the church, venom drippingfrom their fangs.

(01:08:48):
Where is he?
hissed the witch.
The demons peeled the heavy eyelids back.
There he is!
Like she's talking about the demons pulling their eyelids back and it is just like, whatkind of story are these kids listening to?

(01:09:12):
And the other moment I wanted to mention is the guy at the dam, because they're racing upthere to get to the dam to stop the dam from being, know, let the water out.
And the guy at the dam is watching this classic 50s monster movie.
is, I looked it up, it is 1957's The Monster That Challenged the World.

(01:09:32):
And the movie is about giant mollusks that emerged from the Salton Sea in California andescape into a canal system and run amok or swim amok.
So I'm like, that's great.
That is a great referential thing.
Sounds familiar.
And there's just like, it's these little moments in this movie that make it so, thatelevate it from just something, from just a creature feature.

(01:10:00):
It's something more.
Yeah, I could watch a whole like meatballs style movie just about Paul Bartel being thecamp director quite frankly.
it would be amazing.
And he is so great.
I mean, he did a lot of new world pictures.
He directed new world pictures, including Death Race 2000, which is a fantastic movie.
that movie.
So we have Paul.

(01:10:21):
Paul and Maggie, they're in jail.
So they escape the jail.
She floods her cell and then hits the deputy over the head with a broken toilet seat.
And I just love it.
She's like trying to get the keys, you know.
Paul says to her, I thought you could get a man's pants off quicker than that.

(01:10:41):
But all the action in this movie is initiated by women.
Yeah.
It's a, it's a great thing.
For better or for worse.
Yeah.
They are driving the story in, you know, they're, again for better or for worse, they'redriving the story.
And, and the, the most, the most moving death in the movie is, is one of the two campcounselors, Betsy.

(01:11:04):
And it is, it is a great moment that we're going to get to very shortly.
where the Piranha attack the camp and she goes down into the water and it's a greatmoment.
But we have to talk about the Aquarina Springs Resort owned and run by Buck Gardner,played by Corman and Joe Dante favorite, Dick Miller.

(01:11:28):
And Dick Miller is fantastic.
mean, Dick Miller's fantastic at everything, but he is great in this movie.
Yeah, with his pink little ascot.
He's a really good appearance and vocal match for the Jaws mayor too.
Yeah.
I think like they have a very similar sort of style about them.
For sure, for sure.
there's that like, there's a smarminess to those characters.

(01:11:51):
I love when he's trying to, like he has the little girl cutting the giant ribbon to openthe place and she can't do it with the scissors.
He's like, nice try kid.
And he takes it from her and cuts it.
This movie is full of little moments and great little, little performances that otherwisecould get sanded off.
If you sand it off the rough edges, you wouldn't be left with the same movie.

(01:12:16):
You're going to get into that when we talk about the 95 version.
Like the location is one of the main things, too, for this Aquarena Springs.
Like they took like an actual location where they did have this resort.
I can't remember what the actual resort was called, but this was an actual resort that wasthere.
And they used that location so beautifully.
They'd even do like that overhead shot to introduce it.

(01:12:37):
Yeah.
And that and that makes the movie just so much more alive.
And they had tons of extras for this resort.
Like apparently.
Apparently they were paying them $5 a day and a box lunch to be there, but I'm like, itwouldn't really be a hardship.
Half of them are just like playing in the water or just hanging out on the beach.
Like, why not?
for sure.
So Paul and Maggie, they're headed to uh the camp in a stolen cop car.

(01:13:03):
And Paul realizes that the piranhas that have been bred to live in salt water, they mightbe going for the ocean.
But at the camp, all the kids get into the water for the big inner tube competition,except for Susie, who sneaks off because she's smart.
the most shocking moment here is that Dumont, Paul Bartel's character, has got a gun tostart off the race.

(01:13:26):
It's not a starter pistol, it's a full-fledged revolver!
And it doesn't really ever evolve into a race either.
No, it's just kind of like they're going back and forth.
I don't know what's going on.
They're just flailing.
Yeah.
They're flailing.
But it's perfect to attract the piranha.
Well, they're flailing at first, but then they do sort of seem to have a relay race atsome point.

(01:13:48):
There is one shot at least where they look like they're having a relay race.
I'll give it that.
But yeah, lots of flailing.
Lots of flailing, lots of kicking, you know, lots of underwater and, but here's the thing,because the piranha are so small, no one's kind of, no one really knows what's happening
at first.
Like the kids like, they start to feel something.
What's that?

(01:14:08):
Oh, I don't know.
Until the piranha flies out of the water and bites Paul Bartel in the face.
It's amazing.
So good.
This is really presaging the entire plot of Piranha
I can't wait.
can't wait.
my God.
We should mention James Cameron's film Piranha too, The Spawning.

(01:14:34):
And Susie, here's where she's got her great arc.
Because Susie, despite being afraid of the water, she proves herself the hero.
Like first she tries to push a canoe out, but that's too heavy.
And then she goes with it, gets a rubber raft and she goes out to rescue Laura and Betsyand she saves Laura, but Betsy is pulled to the bottom.
Yeah.
by the piranha and she disappears into the dark water that's got blood everywhere and itis this very evocative shot.

(01:15:01):
My goodness.
Yeah, like I think I know if anybody knows different, please correct me.
But I think I heard that they achieved that shot by having someone pull her downunderwater in a pool.
think that's right.
I think that's right.
Cause I did watch some of the special features uh on the Shout Factory disc that Justindid some of the special features for.

(01:15:22):
And I think they had an interview with that actress and she mentioned like, essentiallyhaving her pulled down and you know, was, you know, they did it.
They got the shot.
Paul and Maggie arrive at the camp just as the attack is kind of subsided.
He reunites with his daughter.
Maggie calls the resort to warn them.

(01:15:42):
that Piranha are on the way, but Buck refuses to listen.
I mean, it's amazing that this is a movie where ordinary people are doing the best theycan to help, but the people in real authority refuse to help or actively hinder their
efforts.
DeMont is like the best of them, because while he ignored Paul's telephone warningearlier, because he said, oh, you're drunk again, at least once he knows the threat is

(01:16:10):
real, you can see he's there.
pulling kids out of the water and you see how distraught he is at Betsy's death.
He didn't believe that there was a real threat because he thought Paul was a drunk, butonce he realizes it, he at least is actively helping as opposed to the army that is
basically serving people up for a piranha buffet.

(01:16:32):
So question, there's a body in that scene that the camp director's looking at.
Is that supposed to be Betsy or is it supposed to be one of the kids?
Like, I always wondered about that.
think it's supposed to be Betsy because they make such a uh point of seeing her doublethat she gets pulled down to the darkness.
I mean, you it's still a river, so maybe they got her out, you know, once the piranha hadmoved on.

(01:16:57):
I guess the question for me was I always wondered if they actually killed one of the kidsor not, you know, because that's kind one of those movie taboos that often isn't broken.
And there are definitely kids who get bit.
I don't know if there's any kids at the camp who are killed.
But certainly there are teenagers who are going to get killed once the piranha arrives atthe resort.

(01:17:17):
the things are going to go very, very badly there when they get to the resort.
There's so much great stuff.
There's the piranhas attack the scuba diver underwater.
And then you have this fantastic scene.
And I love this scene for it's just
sheer absurdity, the water skier who isn't killed by Piranha.

(01:17:41):
He sees the dead body for the dead scuba guy in the water and that sets off this chain ofevents leading to like another boat crashing into yet another boat and exploding.
it's the Piranha didn't do that except for killing the initial scuba guy.
I mean like it could have been distracted by anything and it would have just beenpandemonium.

(01:18:03):
It really just seems like a Corman touch, like he just liked having explosions in hismovies.
It's like, got to get an explosion in there.
We got to get a car chase.
We got to get an exploit, like one of those things, you know, boat has to blow up at somepoint.
boat.
It's gotta blow up.
It's like, it's, yeah, if you have a car, there's gotta be a car chase.

(01:18:23):
there's a girl on the beach reading Moby Dick, which is his casual summer reading to besure.
As I say, someone who loves Moby Dick and does believe it might be the great Americannovel, but, it is not beach reading.
And Jaws is beach reading, so they could have thrown that in there, but.

(01:18:45):
that would have been amazing.
That would have been the Jaws video game.
Moby Dick is funnier.
Moby Dick.
And finally, the piranhas strike the resort and it's pandemonium.
And we get this amazing exchange with Buck and his assistants.
It's completely false.
The truth to it, believe me, we already talked to the other newspapers about it.

(01:19:07):
Excuse me, do want a phone?
I thought I told you not even to say that word.
What about the goddamn piranhas?
They're eating the guests.
The way he says, they're eating the guests sir, it's so good.
And that costume that guy's wearing where he looks like some kind of boat captain but he'slike the guy's lackey.
I love how earlier he comes with the phone call.

(01:19:30):
in the in the briefcase.
And then you have the Colonel who's on this floating platform and he's like, he'sliterally pushing people back into the water.
Like he's literally pushing people off the platform into the piranha infested water.
Eventually he gets pulled in and eaten.
have his hat floating to the bottom.

(01:19:50):
And then finally Paul and Maggie arrive and they grab a speedboat.
And this is where they set up the smelting plant that he used to work out.
They go for the smelting plant and his plan is to release enough waste to kill thepiranhas.
We'll pollute the bastards to death.

(01:20:11):
And just the irony of we're going to use pollution to stop these piranhas.
It's amazing.
It is just an amazing thing.
And it's the second time because the army pollutes what they are trying to put the priceat the dam before this river by the end of the movie is just gonna be.
oh
river is done.

(01:20:32):
Maybe now in 2025, it might be viable, but I don't even know about that.
But hey, yeah, if people willing to go swimming at night in a pool that looks like itshould be part of a sewage treatment plant, so who knows?
Well, who knows what people do?
But since the plant is flooded, Paul has to swim underwater.

(01:20:53):
to open the valve in a sequence that feels like the low budget rough draft for a missionimpossible sequence.
Like he's underwater, he's got to swim into the control room, he's got a line attached tohim and Maggie has instructions to count to 100 and then hit the gas on the boat and pull
him out.
But he's able to open the valve, she pulls him out right through a window and then shestops, she sees the line is broken and she thinks all is lost but then a hand.

(01:21:23):
pops out of the water.
Like again, like the hand that popped out of the pool at the very beginning.
And then you get that bit with the inevitable media coverage as, as, my God, that Justinreferenced the beginning, Lost River Lake, terror, horror, death, film at 11.
It's so good.
cutting is so sharp there.
It's so sharp.

(01:21:44):
It's just the best cut like the thing.
Okay, so you mentioned about how Joe Dante got to start cutting the trailers.
And like it really shows because he I saw an interview he did where he said that that gavehim a sense of what is essential in each scene in a movie.
And it really shows it's just all over this movie that shows that is
fantastic.
Yeah, it's absolutely true.

(01:22:04):
Absolutely.
And then, you know, Paul's sitting there.
He's like catatonic after his experience.
His daughter brings him his canteen of booze.
It's so sweet.
It's such a sweet moment with the leaving Las Vegas.
Yeah, well he got a bit bitten up by those piranhas there.
yeah.
in bad He's in bad shape.

(01:22:25):
uh But then the movie's final words belong to Barbara Steele, who downplays the threat ofthe piranha and assures the press that they could never reach the ocean.
Yep, she says the last line I think she says is, there's nothing left to fear.
And then she has this little smirk on her face, like, like she's actually delighted at theprospect of the Parade is reaching the ocean.

(01:22:46):
Right, right, right.
And we get like the shot of the ocean and you hear the sound of the piranhas and it'samazing.
It's amazing.
It's Yes, to Red.
I mean, this film, it manages to balance a comic tone with a serious threat as well as anymovie I can think of.

(01:23:08):
it's just, you know, I mean, it's just, it was a big hit when it came out in August of1978.
Interestingly,
Universal was considering an injunction to try and stop the film's release because theyhad Jaws 2 coming out the same summer, but Steven Spielberg stopped them from doing that
because he saw the movie and loved it and he said that Piranha was the best of the Jawsrip-offs.

(01:23:33):
be to God, it's better than the Jaws sequels too.
I'll be just gonna say it.
I think it's better than any of the Jaws sequels.
I do kind of like three, oddly, but...
got its qualities.
It's insane.
you know, yeah.
And this movie kicked off both John Sales and Joe Dante's careers.

(01:23:53):
They would collaborate again on the Howling as well.
And Sales would write a movie, a similar movie that we will talk about in a couple ofweeks, Alligator, and then go on to a terrific directing career as well.
Movies like Return of the Secaucus 7 and 8 Man Out and Passion Fish and Lone Star.
Mate Juan.
he's great.

(01:24:13):
he's
Fantastic, fantastic.
As you say, he's a little quieter of a filmmaker, so he doesn't always get the attentionthat other filmmakers often get.
But his films are terrific.
Terrific.
And based on the success of Piranha, Joe Dante was offered a couple of interestingprojects, one of them Orca 2.

(01:24:34):
Oh my God.
I can't, I mean, I want to peek into that alternate universe where Joe Dante made a sequelto Orca because I can't imagine his like self-aware sensibility mixed in with the
seriousness, the dourness that is Orca.
that fascinating.
Where are you gonna go after the orca blows up the power station anyway?

(01:24:59):
I love it.
I love, I love that sequence in the movie.
My God.
Oh, you could have him.
Oh, you could get that orc could do anything.
He's so smart.
My God.
He also nearly did a third Jaws movie, which was going to be a parody entitled Jaws 3people zero.
Which might be the greatest movie title that never happened.

(01:25:22):
Like that is such a great, there was a different Jaws 3, but Jaws 3 people zero.
Oh my God.
And Dante did eventually work with Steven Spielberg on Twilight Zone, movie, and ofcourse, Gremlins, which has a very similar feel.
Like there's a sensibility.
I don't think you have Gremlins without Piranha.
Hmm, yeah, maybe not.

(01:25:43):
And how about the sequel here?
Well, and here's the thing is Piranha has host has spawned a whole host of remakes andsequels and Jen, I know you went above and beyond to watch some of the subsequent Piranha
movies.
And I just I'm very interested in your report about.
Well, went at, I'd already seen in the past, I'd seen Piranha to the Spawning and I'd seenthe Piranha 3D from 2010, but I went and I did a rewatch of like all the ones I'd seen and

(01:26:10):
the ones I hadn't seen.
That's amazing.
And a gold star for effort.
My good.
It was my pleasure.
uh But yeah, Piranha Tooth is spawning.
guess Quorman sold the rights off for that one.
So that's how it ended up being not very good.
Apparently, James Cameron has told some people he didn't have a lot of directorial controleither.

(01:26:32):
And the funny thing about Piranha Tooth is it feels more dated than Piranha, even thoughit came out later.
It has a very sort of Italian feel to it, if you know what I mean.
Interesting.
It definitely...
It's there's there's definitely more nudity and sort of a lackadaisical feeling about theplot.
ah But it does have the pranas flying in the air.

(01:26:53):
So you want to find pranas.
I do.
I very much want to see Flying Piranha.
My goodness.
That's, uh I mean, honestly, that's cinema right there.
That's not something you can get in, you know, it's an audio drama or something.
That is, that's real cinema.
I like part two.
yeah, you like it?

(01:27:14):
Okay, okay.
Do tell, do tell.
Well, I think it has some things to offer.
It's the audacity of the concept that carries it once you realize that the Piranha can flyin it.
It's amazing.
But I think it's a movie that has set pieces that work.
The movie as a whole, maybe not so much, but there are definitely some moments in it thatjustify adding it to the collection and certainly having it sit next to this.

(01:27:42):
It's not as bad as like Return to Salem's lot.
Right.
Right.
An abomination that followed something that a lot of people consider a classic.
It wasn't like that.
This is, this is something different and it's weird enough that it's, I think worthinteresting checking out.
has more exploitive elements in it than the original does.
So they.
Yeah, but nowhere near as many as the reboots, which well.

(01:28:05):
Gosh.
No, my
So the first reboot came in 1995, and that was done for Showtime, and Corman did producethat.
He didn't produce Piranha too, but he did executive produce the 95 version.
What can you tell us about that?
It's just so boring.
I'm just like, it really like, if you watch it and then watch Piranha the original again,you're like, you see some of the things that make Piranha great.

(01:28:31):
Like I've been talking about throughout the episode, just like, just feels, they don'thave interesting locations.
They don't have enough extras to fill out scenes.
They take away the edges of all the characters.
like he's not an alcoholic anymore.
Like he's just a nice writer guy.
m
And it's just, there's no funny characters.
It's like they tried to take the humor out of it.

(01:28:53):
And once you do that, it just doesn't really work as well.
Plus they kill Brandy, the dog, I find inexcusable.
And there's no weird little mutants wandering around either.
mean, that's part is hardly surprising.
They also don't upgrade the effects, which is so bizarre.
It's like you probably could have done a little bit more.

(01:29:13):
uh
with the effects by that point, they literally use shots from the original Piranha.
Like Justin, did you see this one also?
Did you, what is your opinion on this one?
I haven't.
I remember it being on DVD because it was in one of those weird jewel case DVD cases backI remember those.
They had a cover that opened on it.
Yeah.
I have a William Shatner TV movie called Secrets of a Married Man in one of those cases.

(01:29:38):
Yeah.
They weren't very common, I don't think, but yeah, I distinctly remember the cover.
It's the fish with red or brown water.
And I thought I have not seen it to your question, but I think, wasn't it made for TV?
It was made for shows.
Showtime, so you know, I don't know.
So you still get away with stuff.
Yeah.
It's got William Cat as was played Paul from, from the greatest American hero and, a veryyoung Mila Kunis as his daughter.

(01:30:04):
Yeah, she doesn't get to do very much though comparatively.
Yeah, it's like the whole thing is just it just feels weird and sad.
And I'm just like, why was it?
I it was made to make money.
I don't know.
Sure.
Sure.
Yeah.
But then there were two more Piranha movies in the 21st century.
Oh, you know what I just thought of for that?
Sorry to interrupt you, Chris.
Oh go ahead.
But as an extension of your comment there, Jennifer, that Corman was smart about holdingonto licenses that he saw might have potential.

(01:30:34):
And so maybe he was grabbing the license back or something with making that.
Oh, interesting.
He did a, what was that?
Fantastic Four, I think it was.
yeah, oh sure, the 94 Fantastic Four movie.
Yeah, and he was about to, he had the license somehow.
I mean, I guess it was the era where no one cared about superhero movies.

(01:30:57):
Marvel movies in particular were, a lot of them were produced by New World, because for atime New World owned Marvel.
There you go.
And so I think if I recall correctly that that Fantastic Four movie was only made so hecould hold onto the license.
And so there really wasn't much put into it.
He-
He wasn't really trying to make a movie to show the world.
He was trying to make a movie to prove legally that he had made the movie.

(01:31:20):
That is intriguing.
I could see that.
Yeah, because it just really didn't feel like a lot of love was put into that 1995 movie.
So yeah.
Interesting.
But then there were also two more Piranha movies in the 21st century.
Yep.
Piranha 3D and Piranha 3DD or DD?
Yes, three double D.

(01:31:40):
Yeah, I saw Piranha 3D in the theaters when I lived in South Korea, by the way.
I I saw it was something I saw with 3D glasses.
There were things that were put into my face.
will just say that I did not need to have put into my face with that.
don't want to spoil too much of the movie, but yeah, when I watched, I didn't really likeit at all the first time because I was comparing it to 78 Piranha.

(01:32:04):
Right.
Then when I just watched it again, I remembered it being bad, so I liked it a lot.
if that makes sense.
You know, I was like, okay, it's been a while.
Like it isn't as bad as I thought it was at the time.
And I actually liked it better without the 3D come to it.
Maybe it benefited from being on a smaller screen too with fewer expectations, but there'ssome cool things in it.
They have a Richard Dreyfus cameo to open the movie, is.

(01:32:28):
Yeah.
he's singing.
think he's singing, show me the way to go home at the.
my God.
saw that in the theater too when it came out.
the people in the theater applauded when they saw him show up on screen.
Wow.
But it is so over the top from front to back.
it's almost like it's trying to pour everything from the exploitation world into thismovie.

(01:32:57):
when you think it's not gonna go somewhere, then it goes two steps beyond that.
And that's the entire running time of the thing.
And it's almost exhausting by the time you get to this.
It could almost be called boobs the movie quite frankly because it's really just likebreasts everywhere but they're not like they're not like lovely 70s and early 80s natural
breasts they're all.
ah It's like porn stars in it.

(01:33:18):
Yeah.
Ang lighting thing.
They're the pair uh of
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's a lot going on in this movie.
It gets really over the top.
I do like the origin story for the piranhas, although it depoliticizes things entirely.
But they have an origin story where like there's an earthquake and then like an underwaterlake unleashes like prehistoric piranhas.

(01:33:39):
The Historic Piranha, it's like the bear in Grizzly was a prehistoric bear!
And then like Christopher Lloyd is like Reese like learning telling everybody about themis because he's a mad scientist.
It has everything in this movie.
And I actually kind of like 3D.
But 3D for me is the worst.
I would rather watch the 1995 one again.
Like, and it's just for me, it's the worst because it's everything that this movie is toomuch of 3D.

(01:34:04):
This one is even more of I don't know if you've seen it, Justin.
I haven't, but it's one that I've always been intrigued but never drawn to.
Maybe watch it once, because there's a scene where Ving Rhames has like titanium legs andhe has a gun leg like Sherry Darling in Planet Terror.
So that was like for me, that was like the one redeeming part of the movie, but theydidn't let it go out long enough.

(01:34:26):
So, yeah.
And that is apparently a movie with David Hasselhoff as himself.
Amazing.
I could have taken or left that part of it to be honest.
Oh, but thank you.
mean, is, is what I mean.
Coming to the table with not just Piranha, but, having a report on the Piranha sequels andremakes, uh, that is, that is above and beyond Jen.

(01:34:52):
Thank you so much.
I I had fun.
I had so much fun doing it.
And like, I liked watching a bad movie too.
Like you can learn things from that.
Right.
And you can absolutely.
And thank you for having thank you for having me on this episode because I have such deeplove for the original Piranha.
It was was a joy you I mean from the moment you mentioned you were just you were soenthusiastic and I was just like we have to have her on for Piranha and it like and it was

(01:35:17):
so early that I hadn't figured out the schedule yet I was like well as soon as we nail itdown I'll let you know but I was I was always cuz like she she she wants piranha She wants
piranha that bad and we've had this series We've had a couple guests who have just beenreally really big fans of the movie They've come on to talk about and we have been we have
been blessed with both cases and uh

(01:35:38):
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
It's interesting.
I want to mention that that Corman himself would go on to make more movies about animalsattacking in the water because he did 1979's Up from the Depths and 1980's Humanoids from
the Deep, films that we aren't necessarily going be able to fit into this series, but verywell might show up in Get Me Another Jaws, Volume 2.

(01:36:02):
So just a teaser for the future.
Again.
Jennifer, thank you so much for joining us and for doing all the research.
It is just, you always bring so much to the table and it's always great to have you on.
Can you tell listeners where the Every Rom Com podcast can be found?
Sure, mean we're found a variety of places.

(01:36:23):
For now we have a website www.everryromcom.com that may change in the new year, but youcan find us on Facebook at Every Romcom Podcast and Blog, Twitter at Every Romcom Pod,
Instagram at Every Romcom, Blue Sky at Every Romcom, and you can also find us on YouTube.
We don't have video content yet, but you can listen to us at Every Romcom Podcast.

(01:36:47):
And if you want to follow me on Letterboxd and read my thoughts about
all the Piranha sequels and many other things.
You can find me over there at Jen Everyromcom.
So J-E-N Everyromcom.
Yep.
Fantastic.
Yeah.
Again, it's wonderful to be on your show always.
Thank you so much for having me again.
Thank you for being here.

(01:37:07):
Oh, is always a delight to have you on.
You're one of our favorites.
And thank you for coming back and bringing so much to the table.
so now next week, we have an interesting show next week because we are going to bediscussing two films that incorporate Native American mythology into animal attack movies,

(01:37:29):
both from 1979.
So we'll be discussing Prophecy, which features a mutant bear.
Run amok in the woods of Maine, and Nightwing about a flock of bubonic plague-infestedvampire bats in the Southwest.
It's gonna be fantastic.
Again, we are your hosts, Chris Iannacone and Justin Beam.

(01:37:50):
If you've enjoyed our show, please consider subscribing and following us on Blue Sky,Instagram, threads, and Twitter at Get Me Another Pod.
Check out the Justin Beam Radio Hour wherever you listen to podcasts, as well as everyrom-com, also wherever you listen to podcasts.
And you can find Justin's book Roadside Memories at JustinBeam.com or wherever books aresold.
And if you've liked the show, tell your friends about it.

(01:38:13):
Tell your enemies about it.
Tell that strange little creature lurking around the lab about it.
And join us next time as we continue to explore what happens when Hollywood says, get meanother.
you uh

(01:38:39):
There's nothing left for you.