{"id":6757,"date":"2024-10-25T10:44:47","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T14:44:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6757"},"modified":"2024-10-25T10:44:47","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T14:44:47","slug":"killer-fish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/25\/killer-fish\/","title":{"rendered":"Killer Fish"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Killer Fish<\/strong> (1979)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 AFD\/Horror-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 101 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (violence, frightening scenes)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Anthony M. Dawson (Antonio Margheriti)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Michael Rogers\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Guido and Maurizio de Angelis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Alberto Spagnoli\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 7, 1979 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Lee Majors, Karen Black, Margaux Hemingway, Marisa Berenson, James Franciscus, Gary Collins, Charles Guardino, Frank Pesce, Dan Pastorini, Roy Brocksmith, Anthony Steffen, Fabio Sabag.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Let\u2019s do a little movie genealogy Biblical style. As Jaws begat Piranha, Piranha begat Killer Fish<\/strong> making it a third generation rip-off. It\u2019s not a purebred horror movie however. In its DNA, you\u2019ll also find a heist thriller and traces of a disaster movie. This mixing of genres forms an entertaining hunk of bunk that rises above other cinematic junk on sheer spunk. It shouldn\u2019t come as any surprise that it\u2019s the work of Anthony M. Dawson [aka Antonio Margheriti], that Italian auteur who also gave us Yor, the Hunter from the Future and Code Name: Wild Geese.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Talk about a winning cast, wait until you get a load of the line-up in Killer Fish<\/strong>. Lee Majors, the Six Million Dollar Man himself, stars as Robert Lasky, the leader of a band of thieves who pull off a daring robbery at a mine in Brazil. By way of distraction, they blow up a nearby oil refinery so they can sneak into the mine\u2019s vault and steal a sizable stash of gemstones. They manage to evade the police and report back to the guy who masterminded the operation, Paul Diller (Franciscus, Beneath the Planet of the Apes). It\u2019s decided it would be best to hide the loot until the heat dies down. It\u2019s dropped into a nearby reservoir. The gang, which also includes Kate (Black, Airport 1975), agrees to reconvene in 60 days to split it up.<\/p>\n

\u00a0That old saying about no honor among thieves is once again proven when two of the thieves return to the reservoir to steal the gems for themselves. When one of them goes into the water to retrieve the sunken treasure, he comes out screaming. It seems that Paul has secretly stocked the water with piranha because he doesn\u2019t trust his hired crooks. Gee, imagine that. Could he possibly intend to steal it all for himself?<\/p>\n

\u00a0In a subplot that exists only to provide more human fish food, Robert finds romance with Gabrielle (Hemingway, Lipstick), a fashion model who arrives at the resort with her entourage that includes manager Ann (Berenson, Barry Lyndon),\u00a0 effeminate photographer Ollie (Brocksmith, Tango & Cash) and\u00a0 pilot Tom (Collins, Hangar 18).<\/p>\n

\u00a0What follows is a series of double-crosses, back-stabbings and greed-induced paranoia as the gang tries to figure out a way to get back their loot without being devoured by the titular killer fish. That\u2019s when Killer Fish<\/strong> shifts into disaster movie mode with a tropical storm that causes the dam to break thereby releasing the deadly piranha into the lake where the surviving characters up to this point are trapped on a sinking tour boat.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Although it\u2019s technically NOT my first time seeing Killer Fish<\/strong>, I may as well have made it a \u201cFirst-Time Friday Feature\u201d on my website. I saw it when it aired on network TV in \u201982, but remember next to nothing about it except Hemingway. Nothing jogged my memory as I watched it on Grindhouse Monday. Of course, certain details wouldn\u2019t have meant anything to me back then. At 14, I knew nothing of Dawson\/Margheriti or cheap Italian knock-off movies. I tuned in because it was the only show in town (we didn\u2019t get cable TV until \u201983). Watching it now, I know exactly what it is and for what it is, it\u2019s pretty good.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Isn\u2019t it odd that a movie called Killer Fish<\/strong> is rated PG? Most filmmakers would go for the R so they can show the bloody piranha attacks. Nevertheless, it has a few neat shots of piranhas feeding on the cast and grisly skeletal remains. Remember, you could get away with a lot more in a PG movie in \u201979 than now. The piranha sequences are a combination of real footage and animatronics. I don\u2019t know how much money Dawson had to work with (it wasn\u2019t much obviously), but he does a decent job with the visuals especially the miniature effects in a few scenes- e.g. the oil refinery and dam explosions, the power plant flooding. The rear projection shots of people running away from said catastrophes look fake, but that\u2019s part of the appeal.<\/p>\n

The cast, by and large, does a respectable job playing stock characters. Majors, who made an acting career out of his furrowed brow expression, is good as the hero of the bunch. He\u2019s the one that steps up to save the others from certain death either by killer fish or killer Franciscus. As the villain, James camps it up nicely with a suitably smarmy demeanor and evil expression as he sends others to their deaths. Black\u2019s character is too vaguely defined. If I had to put a label on Kate, it would be \u201clying B who can\u2019t be trusted\u201d. Hemingway shows she\u2019s a model first, last and everything in between with her wooden performance. She\u2019s fine when she just stands around and poses; it\u2019s when she tries to act that she gets into trouble. She can\u2019t read lines to save her life.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Brocksmith, with all his swishing around and snarky comments, overplays it as a stereotypical gay guy. Based on that alone, you can tell Killer Fish<\/strong> is a 70s movie. And if not that, then the characters\u2019 wardrobes or the cheesy disco song by Amii Stewart (\u201cThe Winner Takes All\u201d) that closes the movie. This is also part of its goofball appeal.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There\u2019s a lot I like about Killer Fish,<\/strong> the mash-up of genres, the effects and the killer fish, but what I like most is its sense of conviction. Dawson isn\u2019t out to redefine a genre; he\u2019s out to exploit it. He\u2019s doesn\u2019t try and hide it either. He just wants to show his audience a good time and largely succeeds. Killer Fish<\/strong> is killer fun.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Killer Fish (1979)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 AFD\/Horror-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 101 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (violence, frightening scenes)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Anthony M. Dawson (Antonio Margheriti)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Michael Rogers\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Guido and Maurizio de Angelis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Alberto Spagnoli\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 7, 1979 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Lee Majors, Karen Black, Margaux Hemingway, Marisa Berenson, James Franciscus, Gary Collins, Charles Guardino, Frank Pesce, Dan Pastorini, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7130,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Killer-Fish-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6757"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7132,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6757\/revisions\/7132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}