A horror/comedy low budget spoof about a shoal of killer Piranha fish bred by the army for use in Vietnam.The fish are accidentally released from an abandoned military facility and head towards a newly opened summer resort. Director Joe Dante embellishes the film with an array of references to other movies, with a strong supporting cast from many actors of the 'B' and horror movie genre.

Awards:

1979: Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, USA

Saturn Award Best Editing (Mark Goldblatt, Joe Dante)

There are conflicting stories about Barry's role in this, his last movie. One is that Joe Dante wanted Barry for the lead role that eventually went to Bradford Dillman (referred to in the Barry Brown Remembered article I have). However, a close friend to both Barry and Joe Dante told me when Joe started to work on Piranha, Barry asked him for a role to which Joe wrote the part of the state trooper in especially for him. Barry loved to work and had always wanted to be in a horror movie. The reason I add this trivia is it proves Barry remained professional until the end, despite his personal problems - he just wanted to act and I'm sure all of his fans are proud of him for that.

Extract from director's commentary -

(Police car pulls out)

Joe Dante: Oh yeah, this is where they get pulled over by Barry Brown. Barry was a friend of mine, he had been in, Bad Company and Daisy Miller, and he was quite a film buff.

Jon Davison, producer: He STARRED in Daisy Miller.

Dante: Yeah, and this turned out to be his last film. This scene was shot in, I think, in Griffith Park, on the first night, and there were a lot of frogs croaking, and we decided we wanted to loop a lot of it.

Davison: You know, with all those frogs in every take, we had to fire a gun in the air. And that would give you about ten seconds to roll before the frogs started again.

(cut to the jail)

Dante: This was a jail on Venice Boulevard which had become - I think - some sort of art place. Now this scene was one of the most difficult scenes I ever shot because I couldn't get the eyelines right. I had him (Barry) standing outside and them looking at him. But then when I went inside to start shooting from their point of view, I got really confused as to who was looking where so I shot everything about three different ways, and I basically used the master because I didn't want to have to deal with it.

(end)

Barry does appear briefly in the jail scene on the outtakes from the movie, seemingly in a good mood and laughing.

March 15 1978 filming begins - April 05 1978 filming ends.

Cast List:

Bradford Dillman ...............Paul Grogan

Heather Menzies ...............Maggie McKeown

Kevin McCarthy ...............Dr Robert Hoak

Keenan Wynn ...................Jack

Dick Miller ........................Buck Gardner

Barbara Steele ...................Dr Mengers

Belinda Balaski ..................Betsy

Melody Thomas .................Laura Dickinson

Bruce Gordon ....................Colonel Waxman

Barry Brown .....................Trooper

Paul Bartel ..........................Dumont

Shannon Collins ..................Suzie Grogan

Shawn Nelson ....................Gunter

Karl Bruck .........................Whitney

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