Joe Dante’s Piranha recently reached the coveted tenth spot on Netflix’s international top ten. The film represents a better era of blockbuster cinema. While Hollywood still desperately follows trends, modern studios lack the guts to give creative filmmakers one-sentence pitches to turn into classics. Billion-dollar IP frequently steals elements from their neighbors, but the golden age of knockoffs invented engaging twists on their predecessors. Piranha is an unabashed imitator, but it has enough fun to keep it in our hearts forever.
Joe Dante’s Piranha Eats Netflix’s Top Ten Alive
Joe Dante directed Piranha for legendary producer Roger Corman. Corman constructed modern pop culture in many ways. He was the king of low-budget, schlocky B-movies. His usual methods involved capturing the essence of the latest blockbuster and digging up hidden talent to ride the trend. Corman gave James Cameron, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and more iconic filmmakers their first break in the industry. Piranha is a sterling example of Corman and his team’s eye for latent brilliance. Dante became an icon six years later with Gremlins, but the film enjoyed several behind-the-scenes icons. John Sayles made his feature debut with Piranha before going on to classics like Matewan. Visual effects wizard Phil Tippett crafted the titular fish before landmark accomplishments in Jurassic Park, Robocop, and Star Wars. Christopher Walas contributed the film’s prosthetic limbs before reuniting with Dante when he constructed the Gremlins. It’s an astonishingly stacked crew.
Corman famously left Joe Dante on his own on Piranha while the producer handled Avalanche. He wanted a cheap Jaws knockoff and trusted Dante to deliver. Dante created one of the most sincere B-movies of the era. The film winks constantly at the audience. Tongue-in-cheek irony is in right now, but it broke new ground in the B-movie scene. It’s intentionally funny in a way few similar films manage. Piranha is the film I’d choose to explain the concept of B-movies. It’s naked in its intentions, but endlessly willing to laugh about it. Piranha slid onto the last spot of Netflix’s top ten list. Unfortunately, it’s not available in the US. FlixPatrol provides international lists by ranking viewers across national top tens. Piranha dominated Netflix in nations like Egypt, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. Those nations handed the film silver medals, forcing it up the worldwide rankings.
Piranha remains perfect for what it is. Roger Ebert’s approach to film criticism involved determining a film’s goals and judging its success by that metric. Piranha is a flawless masterpiece under that, and only that, philosophy. Jaws inspired countless knockoffs. Like RoboCop or Alien, certain projects allow for endless iterations. Dozens of hacks dropped their killer sea creature movies, but no one made them like Dante. Even Stephen Spielberg acknowledged Piranha as “the best of the Jaws ripoffs.” Piranha deserves its top ten spot, though it won’t last long.
