Killer Fish (1979) Reviews

• I don't know why I liked this movie

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  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.

• Sleeping with the Killer Fish...

  Coventry2006-04-30

  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.

• Everyone takes showers and gets eaten

  BandSAboutMovies2018-11-22

  When I was a kid, there was an urban legend that Lee Majors moved to a small town outside Youngstown, Ohio because the locals didn't care what a big star he was. Everyone had an encounter with him, but many found his wife Farah Fawcett to be off-putting. I don't know if these stories are true, but I want them to be. I do know that Lee and Farah did inspire the song "Midnight Train to Georgia," though. Let me sum this one up in short sentences: Priceless emeralds. Hidden jewels. Hungry piranha. Model shoot. Late 1970's decor. Suspicion. Jealousy. More piranha. Other than Lee Majors, this film is a cavalcade of my favorite stars. Well, maybe not favorite. But close. Karen Black is here! And there's Margaux Hemingway, who is as good at being a supermodel as she is bad as an actress. And here's James Franciscus as the main guy you're supposed to hate. And is that the doctor from Total Recall, Roy Brocksmith! Former NFL quarterback, NHRA drag racer and December 1980 Playgirl centerfold of the month Dan Pastorini come on down! Wow! It's Anthony Steffen from The Night Evelyn Came Out of Her Grave! And finally, it's the man whose The Sixth Sense ruined the syndicated episodes of Night Gallery, Hour Magazine host Gary Collins, the bane of my childhood! This whole mess is directed by Antonio Margheriti, who we all know and love as the creator of perhaps the finest movie ever made, Yor, Hunter from the Future. This is more caper than Jaws rip-off. But hey, how many movies have Lee Majors sitting in a limo with a cane that has a crocodile's shrunken head on it, much less him swimming through piranha?

• Fun

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  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.

• Decent enough crime/horror hybrid

  Red-Barracuda2013-11-18

  Killer Fish is yet another Jaws inspired horror flick from the late 70's. Set in South America, it's about thieves who steal a box of diamonds and then throw it into a lake in order to hide them. The plan is to retrieve the booty once the heat dies down but unfortunately it turns out the lake is infested with piranhas making retrieval of the stolen goods a little tricky. Distrust and betrayal quickly set in amongst the thieves. This flick was directed by Antonio Margheriti who was a prolific but fairly middling Italian director responsible for the likes of Naked You Die (1968). This flick was obviously one of the many water-based horror flicks from the time but for the first two thirds of the movie it's more-or-less a crime film. The piranhas of the title take a while to get involved and it's only towards the end that we actually see them. But once a dam breaks and the killer fish are set loose around the surrounding area, the movie moves more squarely into horror territory. The cast isn't too bad all things considered. We have the cheesy Lee Majors in the ostensibly good guy role. The interesting Karen Black is one of the thieves torn between Majors and the brains behind the gang, James Franciscus. Black and Franciscus are better actors than Majors and have more interesting parts. It maybe could be argued that Killer Fish tries to do too much by being a hybrid crime/horror film. And maybe its focus can get a bit lost but it is a decent time-filler and is fairly well made and acted. It's pretty low-budgeted but there is some decent model work and effects in the opening power-plant assault mission as well as the dam bursting sequence. Of additional note, there is a rather hilarious scene where a fat photographer gets eaten by the piranhas – for some reason the group thinks it would be best to send out the only clinically obese member of the team on a pathetically flimsy raft first as a try out. Needless to say that idea ends in tears.