Killer Fish

I had a lot of fun with this movie, which is not the same thing as having a lot of fun at it. There was something cozy about its simple plot and its even simpler faith in tried and true conventions. It could be accused of many things, including laughable dialogue, hysterical performances and insane camera angles, but it could not be accused of dishonesty.

At the beginning some robbers carry out a heist at a factory , robbing a lot of valuable jewels . Later on , they hide the loot into a river, unknowing it is full of piranhas . Soon after , the Jewel thieves attempt to recover the loot of hot rocks at the piranha infested river . But the stealers find a lot of problems to retrieve them as if took a lot of foresight.

This thrilling film concerns typical plot about a robbery that goes wrong , as a scheme to steal and then to hide a fortune in emeralds at the bottom of a tank full of piranhas backfires as the criminals find it impossible to retrieve them . The film attempts to blend two genres : Disaster movie including a spectacular Dam bursting with flood sweeping a factory and the sea monster sub-genre with starving piranhas . In fact , this is one of several films made in the mid-70s and early 80s following the Catastrophe movies as Earthquake , Tower inferno , and after hits as Piranha, Piranha 2, Jaws , Tintorera, Devil Fish, Barracuda, Tentacles , among others . This Killer Fish boasts a good cast but really wasted giving average performances . Stars Lee Majors and Karen Black as two cunning and roguish thieves . Supported by a decent support cast as Margaux Hemingway , Marisa Berenson , Gary Collins, Frank Pesce , Roy Brocksmith , and James Franciscus . Furthermore, special appearance by Anthony Steffen , the known Spaghetti Western antihero , who died in Río de Janeiro , Brazil.

It contains a passable and acceptable cinematography by cameraman Alberto Spagnoli . As well as anticlimatic musical score by Guido and Mauricio de Angelis , adding some catching songs ."Deadly Tresure of Piranha" was middlingly directed by Anthony M. Dawson AKA Antonio Margheritti. He was a good craftsman who made all kinds of genres , such as Wartime : The Last Hunter , Tornado , The Commander , Code Name Wild Geese . Adventures : The Golden Arrow , Ark of the sun...temple of hall , Jungle Raiders, Treasure Island , Mister Invisible . Spaghetti Western : And god David to Cain, Dakota Joe, Vengeance , Joe the Implacable , The Stranger and the Gunfighter, Take a hard ride . Terror : Virgin of Nuremberg ,Web of Spider , Seven dead in the cat's eye , The long hair of death , Castle of blood , Horror Castle , Cannibal in the streets . Science Fiction : Yor the Hunter from the future , War of the planets , Wild Wild Planets . Peplum : Hercules prisoner of evil, Giants of Rome , The Slave merchants ,The Fall of Rome. Thriller : Operation Goldman, , Killers are challenged, The Squeeze , Death Rage. Rating : 4/10. Below average.

Next to Joe Dante's minor exploitation classic, this is already the second "Jaws"-rip off that revolves on piranhas, but the comparison stops right there with the mutual choice of killer fish as the sea monsters. Dante's film is of course better and more relevant, but "Killer Fish" is a typical Italian exploitation product and thus delivers too many grotesque story lines, some neat gore and an unusual cast. Heck, I'm not even sure this film fully qualifies as a "Jaws"-rip off since the main plot involves a diamond heist instead of a besieged tourist resort. Although... it has that, too! A well-organized bunch of thieves successfully complete their diamond robbery and lower the loot to the bottom of the lake for safety reasons. After 60 days – if the police give up their search – they will collect the diamonds again and split. In order to guard his precious jewels, criminal mastermind Paul Diller infested the lake with ravenous piranhas that can regularly nibble from the double-crossing team members. Meanwhile, one of the crooks falls for a model with a speech-defect and a tropical hurricane busts a large dam, allowing the piranhas to spread themselves all across the touristy waters. Antonio Margheriti's "Killer Fish" suffers from a slightly tedious and hesitant opening half hour, but it get more adventurous once the first victim is devoured under the water. The piranha effects as well as the underwater cinematography are a bit disappointing but this film has an irresistible 70's charm, complete with cool soundtrack and stereotypical characters. Lee Majors is excellent as the macho with more hair on his chest than brains in his skull and Karen Black is a great shrew. Not as good as I hoped, but a fun piece of Italian trash nonetheless.

Watching Margeaux Hemingway in this movie is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Her lisp and stone-faced moroseness makes Lee Majors' eyebrow look like Marlon Brando, but she is nonetheless compelling. The same goes for the rest of the cast. You just can't believe how sincere everyone is trying to be and it's fascinating to watch.

The last third of this movie is actually good fun, sort of like "Key Largo" without all of the intelligence to get in the way.

I really am convinced that Antonio Margheriti is a good director, period. "Killer Fish" is an average, but decent action/disaster/thriller with just a few horror elements. Some might say this is a "Piranha" rip-off, but it's not. Because only in the second half of the movie we get to see some piranha action. And even that isn't much. It's more their constant being there that's causing the threatening atmosphere. This is as much a crime movie as it is a disaster movie, as it is a killer-fish movie. And I simply loved the great miniature effects when the dam broke. But what struck me most, was some of the very well-written and catchy dialogue. One guy says to Karen Black: "There I was thinking you've got some German blood in you...". Karen Black denies this by responding "Uh-uh... I WIN my wars.". Or the bad guy saying "Sometimes an unloaded gun is more effective than a loaded one." (you have to see that quote in the context of the scene). And there's much more good stuff like that coming from all characters. Lee Majors is in it too, and something hit me when I saw him in this film... If George Clooney would have been big in the 70's, he would have been Lee Majors! Surprisingly this flick was a bit less silly than "Tentacoli" (which coincidentally I saw a week before, or so), so I say "Killerfish" is a good, average and watchable film. A typical Margheriti cocktail, actually.