Piranha (20th Anniversary Special Edition)
Roger Corman produced this shamelessJawsrip-off at the  height of the "nature gone wild" boom of American cinema and struck B-movie gold. Scripted by John Sayles and directed by Joe Dante, this  tongue-in-cheek thriller stars Bradford Dillman (doing his best Rip Torn  impression) as an antisocial mountain man and Heather Menzies as a rookie  detective who race a school of mutant piranha downriver. Dante and Sayles  provide the requisite blood and gore for this drive-in meat market: a kids' summer camp and a waterfront amusement park await the little beasties.  Along the way, riverside retiree Keenan Wynn gets his ankles stripped clean, camp counselor Paul Bartel is chomped on the cheek by a hungry little  bugger who takes to the air, and hordes of unlucky bathers are caught in  the center of a feeding frenzy. What differentiates this little gem from  the legion of similar knockoffs are the satirical swipes at military  arrogance and crass commercialism, Dante's energetic enthusiasm, and the  bursts of black humor: "Lost River Lake: Terror, horror, death. Film at  11." The culty cast also includesInvasion of the Body Snatchers's  Kevin McCarthy as the hysterical scientist guarding the creatures, horror  diva Barbara Steele as a devious government researcher, and longtime Corman regular Dick Miller as an unscrupulous entrepreneur ("Sir, the piranha are  eating the guests").The DVD features good-humored commentary by director Joe Dante and producer Jon Davison, who also narrate the 10 minutes of good-quality home-movie  footage shot by Davison. There are also six minutes of outtakes.--Sean  Axmaker