Going in I was expecting a shlock-fest, but I should have known better with Joe Dante (GREMLINS) as the director and John Sayles (MATEWAN, LONE STAR) as the writer. Honestly, the film is a Roger Corman JAWS rip-off, but it’s a good one.

Paul Grogan (Bradford Dillman, THE SWARM) lives in a cabin and drinks most of the day, pinning over the break-up of his marriage. Maggie McKeown (Heather Menzies, SSSSSSS) is a young detective, who is looking for a young couple that has disappeared into the woods. She ropes Paul into helping her look for the kids at an old seemingly abandoned military outpost deep in the woods. There they unknowingly release mutated piranha into the river, which leads to a summer camp and new lake resort.

The mad scientist Dr. Robert Hoak (TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE) tries to help Maggie and Paul stop the killer fish before they kill again, however the military doesn’t want their top-secret weapon made public. Making things more desperate, Paul’s young daughter Suzie (Shannon Collins) is attending the summer camp.

The plot has well-structured obstacles for the main characters to overcome in trying to save the kids and resort guests from being eaten alive. Dante knows that he’s making a B-movie and has fun with it. He even pays homage to JAWS right at the beginning with Maggie playing a videogame based on the blockbuster film.

The dialogue is fairly tongue-in-cheek and Dillman pretty much serves as the straight man for the ditzy comedy of Menzies. Like any good B-horror flick, there are lots of killings and bodily mutilations. In comparison to modern gore-fests, the killings are tame, but the film does have the guts to not let the kids escape unharmed. The piranha effects are not bad by low-budget standards. Because of the real filmmakers behind the camera, this horror flick understands its campy nature and creates a fun entertainment.