As far as I know, Joe Dante’s debut creature feature is the only Jaws-ploitation genre exercise to not only be so good it avoided a lawsuit from Universal Pictures, but to have earned a coveted thumbs up from Bruce the Shark’s daddy himself, Steven Spielberg. There’s much to love in this low-budget horror, from practical rubber piranhas crafted by Phil Tippett to Heather Menzies’ charming performance as young skiptracer Maggie. But what makes this fishy frightener rise above the choppy waters of other Jaws pastiches is Dante’s tongue-in-cheek humor keeping the scares silly rather than overly serious. I mean, who else would put a literal Jaws arcade game in their rip-off? Only our good friend Joe. – James Scott
