Piranha (1995 film)



Piranha (also known as Piranhas) is a 1995 American horror television film directed by Scott P. Levy about a school of killer piranha descending upon the bustling Lost River Lake Resort. Executive produced by Roger Corman for the Showtime network, the film is a remake of the 1978 film Piranha, directed by Joe Dante and is also Mila Kunis' debut role.

Plot
Following the brutal death of J.R. Randolph's (Monte Markham) daughter (Lorissa McComas) and her boyfriend (James E. Brodhead), J.R. Randolph hires private investigator, Maggie McNamara (Alexandra Paul), to investigate, thinking that it was a runaway incident.

The investigator searches the area for any possible witnesses, eventually stopping by local homeowner Paul Grogan, (William Katt), asking for any knowledge of the girl's disappearance. He claims to have not seen her, but leads her to an old shut down military camp, where they discover a pool, drain it, and find a skeleton of an animal.

After they drained the pool, they meet the scientist, Dr. Leticia Baines (Darleen Carr), who attempts to stop the draining before it was too late, and informs them that there were piranha in the pool that they had drained, and was assumed to be headed to the river.

Grogan, knowing his daughter (Mila Kunis) was at a scout camp just downstream of the river, goes to J.R. Randolph along with the private investigator, and try and convince him to shut down a grand opening of a resort just downstream. They fail, and have to make many twists and turns to try and save people downstream.

On the way to warn people of the piranha, Grogan and private investigator end up arrested after Randolph had claimed that they lied about the piranha, claiming it to be "nonsense."

At tails end, they come down to one choice. They need to kill the piranha, they find an old main, and plan to blow it up spreading toxins into the lake, in attempts to kill the piranha, the attempt is successful, however, J.R. Randolph knows he faces trouble, and decides to kill himself.

Cast

 * Alexandra Paul as Maggie McNamara
 * William Katt as Paul Grogan
 * Darleen Carr as Dr. Leticia Baines
 * Soleil Moon Frye as Laura Dickinson
 * James Karen as Governor
 * Mila Kunis as Susie Grogan
 * Kehli O'Byrne as Gina Green
 * Richard Israel as Dave
 * Kaz Garas as Sheriff
 * Leland Orser as Terry Wechsler
 * Ben Slack as Earl Lyon
 * James E. Brodhead as Jack
 * Monte Markham as J.R. Randolph
 * Lorissa McComas as Barbara Randolph

Production
Rather than shoot new special effects for the film, executive producer Roger Corman recycled the special effects from the original. The screenplay is nearly identical to that of the original, but removes all of the humor and comedy. Dante and producer Jon Davidson expressed a dislike for the film in the audio commentary on the DVD for the original.