Cheap thrills

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This article was published 19/08/2010 (5875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TOMORROW’S theatrical release of Piranha 3D promises lots of naked flesh and even more gore… literally a tanker truck full of fake blood, if a recent report from Entertainment Weekly is to be believed.

That envelope-pushing content decidedly ups the ante of its comparatively modest (and considerably cheaper) inspiration, the Roger Corman-produced movie Piranha, a gleefully derivative Jaws ripoff directed by Joe Dante and released in the summer of 1978.

But the film’s director, Alexandre Aja, balks at the term "remake." He told the movie website Collider: "It’s not the same story, it’s not the same characters and not the same piranha. It’s a completely different movie."

But Aja added: "When I read the first draft six years ago, of piranha attacking during spring break, I thought, ‘This is exactly the fun ride I want to watch.’

"I never think about what people want to see. Me, as a moviegoer, before being a filmmaker, I try to think about what movie I would like to see."

That may be Aja’s most salient connection to Corman, a legendary film producer whose career spans more than half a century in the business (including one of his earliest productions, the original The Fast and the Furious, made in 1955). In the past few weeks, the DVD distribution company Shout! Factory has been trickling out a series of Corman’s library of films from the years he ran the legendary film production company New World in the ’70s and ’80s.

The DVDs are highly instructive as an epochal history of exploitation movies, as well as an affirmation of Corman’s unique genius for discovering and supporting talent. In the ’60s and ’70s, Corman famously nurtured the careers of directors Martin Scorsese (Boxcar Bertha), Francis Ford Coppola (Dementia 13) and Jonathan Demme (Caged Heat), and actors Jack Nicholson (Little Shop of Horrors) and Robert De Niro (Bloody Mama).

This collection of new DVDs shows Corman’s penchant for hiring talented newcomers (while cutting costs) continued unabated. Indeed, the behind-the-scenes DVD documentaries contain stories that are consistently more entertaining than the movies themselves.

PIRANHA (1978)

Director Joe Dante’s career would later peak with films such as Gremlins and The Howling. But he graduated from editor of New World movie trailers to full-time director with this movie about mutant killer fish that attack swimmers and fishermen. (Bear in mind the movie Jaws was released just three years earlier in 1975.)

A comely private eye (Heather Menzies) and a drunk (Bradford Dillman) investigating the disappearance of a couple of teens discover a military research centre housing deliberately mutated fishies, and accidentally release them into a nearby stream.

Back Stories: In the DVD extras, actress Belinda Belaski joyously tells how she negotiated a better deal for herself when it was determined a reshoot was required of her being pulled underwater to her death by the titular killers. She agreed to do the reshoot — for improved billing.

Also, Oscar-winning editor Mark Goldblatt discusses the challenges of cutting around the attack footage wherein rubber piranhas on sticks repeatedly poked actors and stuntpeople.

The Talent Pool: John Sayles dipped his toes in the Hollywood scene as the screenwriter for this film, and subsequently made a respectable career for himself as a writer and director (Eight Men Out, Lone Star). He can be glimpsed as a cop who allows his car to be stolen by the heroes. He is also presumably responsible for the classic line uttered by a TV reporter in the midst of the gruesome piranha attack at a big lakefront beach party: "Terror. Horror. Death. Film at eleven."

HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP (1980)

"They’re not human, but they hunt human women. Not for killing. For mating."

So went the lurid tagline for this quasi-environmental thriller in which the sexual undercurrent of films such as Creature From the Black Lagoon was rendered explicit. Beefy over-the-hill stud Doug McClure investigates mysterious savage killings in his quaint seaside village.

Back Stories: When Corman produced a film about mutant sea creatures who kill men and rape women, the savvy producer evidently thought he’d be on politically correct ground by hiring a woman, Barbara Peters, to direct the film. Corman was disappointed to see Peters went graphic when it came to the man-killing scenes, but shot the creature-attacking-women scenes in shadows or offscreen.

So he had a second unit director film more explicit scenes with nubile actresses who aren’t seen anywhere else in the movie. The result is a mess that saw female star Ann Turkel on the talk-show circuit actually denouncing the film. It made money anyway. Special effects artist Chris Walas sums up the experience: "The typical line at New World Pictures wasn’t ‘So far, so good.’ It was, ‘So far, so what?’"

The Talent Pool: Oscar-winner Rob Bottin (The Thing, Total Recall) designed the laughable creatures and Oscar-winning composer James Horner (Titanic) got his first feature gig here. The movie also saw the rise of high-powered producer Gale Ann Hurd (Terminator 2: Judgement Day), whom Corman hired as a production assistant.

GALAXY OF TERROR (1981)

Another great tagline: "Hell has just been relocated!"

A knockoff of Alien (1979), this thriller pits a starship crew against a malevolent being who attacks each crew member by exploiting his or her worst fears.

Back Stories: The DVD documentary is titled Tales from the Lumberyard, demonstrating Corman’s ability to shoot movies, even space movies, in the most unlikely locations imaginable.

The Talent Pool: Apart from casting future genre superstar Robert Englund (a.k.a. Freddy Kreuger) as a crewman, the most notable talent to emerge from this film was none other than the King of the World, James Cameron, whom Corman hired as a production designer. Ironically, Cameron would later break away from Corman’s cheapskate moviemaking philosophy by making some of the most expensive movies ever filmed (Titanic, Avatar).

And if you don’t think Cameron is a genius, check out how he managed to make this zero-budget film look like a million bucks, using spray-painted fast-food hamburger boxes to line the walls of the spacecraft to make them look futuristic.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca