The famous skeleton in James Cameron’s cinematic closet is actually a decent enough horror film. Yes there are some flaws – the comic relief is fairly hideous (nerdy guys with glasses persued by fortune hunting women, man with stutter falls in water, horny honeymooning couple), any attack by the flying piranhas looks kind of hokey. But it’s polished enough and has a decent amount of imagination – for instance the couple at beginning trying to have sex underwater in a wreck when they are attacked, the third act reveal that the love interest for the lead woman is actually a government scientist. And the finale is impressive, with them trying to blow up the piranhas and the son appearing on a boat and the ex-husband trying to rescue them all.
Cameron fans will be able to spot themes that appeared in later movies – there’s a tough female lead (Tricia O’Neil), who has a son and an ex-husband with whom she has a good relationship; the women are strong and sexual aggressors (even an elderly man eater and some topless bimbos); Lance Henrickson has a role; there’s a scene where a piranha bursts out of a dead person’s stomach Aliens-style. The acting by the leads is pretty good; that by the supporting cast is pretty poor. All the black people with speaking parts wind up dead – I think there’s only three of them (I liked the dynamiting guy, he seemed liked a good bloke – it’s a shame they had to kill him off).
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