If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This is a great horror movie. The original Piranha from 1978 is scarier. Piranha II the spawning is also scarier. But still this is a really scary movie. This is one of the scariest movies from the 90's This movie has a great story line. 3.9 is underrating it. I give this movie 9 out 10 because it is a great horror film. It has great acting. It also has great special effects. This is a very scary movie. I need more lines. Great movie great movie great movie. See it see it see it see it. It is one of the best horror movie from the 90's. This is a underrated classic. It not has good has the Jaws movies. But still this a great horror movies. It is very scary.

This movie has a TERRIBLE reputation... but, frankly, I've seen far worse, and, lately! (I know, hardly high praise-- heehee.) I was mainly interested because it featured 2 of my favorites-- William Katt & Alexandra Paul (SIGH!), plus, with Monte Markham as the slimy corporate developer baddie, it wound up with no less than 3 PERRY MASON alumni (I can't believe that was a coincidence). Katt played Paul Drake Jr. in the first 8 Raymond Burr TV-movies in the 80s, Paul was in the first 2 movies after he left (along with William R. Moses-- I was always surprised that she didn't stick around longer), and Markham starred in the ill-advised revival in the early 70s.All I can say is... it HELD my attention, and I managed to plow through it with fewer breaks than a LOT of Corman-produced films. (It was funny how they actually made reference to several of his 70s films in the dialogue, including one of the "women in prison" films.)

Piranha starts late one night as two teenagers Barbara (Lorissa McComas) & Dave (Richard Israel) break into a disused army research facility, they decide to go swimming in a pool but are attacked by something inside it... Barabra's uncle J.R. Randolph (Monte Markham) hires private detective Maggie McNamara (Alexandra Paul) to find his missing niece, the trail takes Maggie to the area where Barbara was last seen & speaks to local recluse Paul Grogan (William Katt) who mentions the nearby army facility. Maggie convinces Paul to take her out there where they find personal items belonging to Barbara & Dave by the side of the pool, fearing they may have drown they drain the pool & find skeletal remains at the bottom. Genetic scientist Dr. Leticia Baines (Darleen Carr) tells them that they just released a new breed of Piranha that she created into the local water system, the river runs down towards a newly opened holiday resort & the Piranha are headed straight for it eating anything living in their way...Directed by Scott Levy this made for cable television was the first attempt to remake the modestly effective Jaws (1975) rip-off Piranha (1978) which as gained a fairly strong cult following over the years as one of the better rip-offs out there, more recently Piranha was remade as a big budget 3D Hollywood release so that makes at least three versions of what is essentially the same film & one has to say that the '95 version is by far the worst. To be honest it's not even close. This Piranha is an almost scene for scene remake of the original that adds absolutely nothing to the mix, at least the recent 3d remake tried to change things about a bit rather than just rigidly stick to the original. Sure a few things are slightly different, the genetic scientist is now a woman rather than a man & the camp counsellor is now a woman rather than a man but generally speaking the two films are almost identical in terms of plot. This version lacks the humour & knowing self awareness that the original '78 Piranha had going for it, this is fairly dull going with little inspiration, creativity or gore to keep one watching. The back & forth one liners between Maggie & Paul are alright & there's a certain chemistry there but otherwise Piranha is populated by boring forgettable character's. At only 80 minutes in length at least it doesn't go for too long & has a decent pace but it's not very exciting & is pretty predictable even if you haven't seen the original & if you have seen the original then this will hold no surprises.Despite being made nearly twenty years after the original Piranha actually uses special effects shots from the original & has virtually no new Piranha scenes at all, the same shot of the Piranha swimming through the river is seen again & again as they make this strange high pitched squeaking noise. There's a bit of gore, there's a guy with the flesh ripped from his lower legs, there's a severed arm, people are seen with various bites, there are some shots of blood stained water & a bit of a Dog but nothing too nasty. There's a couple of instances of female nudity as well. The attack scenes are poor, most just consist of people splashing around on top of the water & if you feel something bite you wouldn't you instantly take your foot or hand or whatever out of the water as a natural reaction? I mean that guy sitting at the end of the pier has Piranha attack his legs but he just sits there rather than take them out of the water, does that make any sense to anyone?Probably shot on a low budget this has reasonable production values in a cheap made for television way. The acting isn't too bad, Alexandra Paul & William Katt give better performances than the film deserves.Piranha is one of two remakes or the original piranha & is easily the worst despite what anyone else says, it's a routine & dull rehash that adds nothing & even resorts to stealing the shots of the Piranha from the original such was the impoverished budget. Check out Piranha 3D (2010) instead, it's much much better.

Piranha (1995) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Remake of the 1978 cult classic by Joe Dante features pretty much the same story as we hit "nature strikes back" mode again. This time out a bad girl and her dorky boyfriend go missing so a detective (Alexandra Paul) goes looking for them. With the help of a mountain man (William Katt) they learn that the government has made some man-eating piranhas and sure enough they've let them loose in a popular lake. Whereas the original film was tongue in cheek in terms of its black humor and violence, this one here plays it rather straight, which is a minor problem. I'm not sure if the production team here, which included Roger Corman, just decided to not try touching the original but a little humor here would have helped things. Without the humor we're left with a pretty standard, made-for-TV horror movie that ups the violence and gore. Outside some stock footage from the original movie, the attacks here are pretty good especially one scene towards the end when our hero is trying to save the day when a group of fish attack him. The rather violent bites will certainly make your squirm and this is preceded by some other nice attacks including one poor soul who leaves his feet in the water a tad bit too long. Katt and Paul deliver fine performances and are strong enough to carry the film. The supporting cast doesn't get much done, although the James Karen (THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD) was nice. Fans of the original really aren't going to find this film topping it in any way but fans of the nature attacks genre will want to check it out as harmless fun.