“They’re eating the guests, sir.”

Justin’s rating: How does the dictionary define “pointlessness?” This movie.

Justin’s review: When your girlfriend tries to convince you to go swimming in an abandoned military test site pool in the dead of night, you probably deserve whatever’s going to happen next for your sheer lack of common sense.* And when I pick up a lame Roger Corman-produced remake of a 1978 B-movie, I probably deserve whatever pain’s coming my way, too.

After two ditzes get themselves nibbled on by a mysterious water foe — well, not that mysterious if you paid attention to the title — an investigator named Maggie heads to this research facility to see what’s what. As you might assume, the place is a breeding ground for super-piranha developed by the military presumably on a drunken dare.

During the investigation and a pointless tussle, Maggie accidentally sets “Project Razorteeth” loose into the local river system. No doubt, this will win her awards and accolades from the population — if any of them survive. And as one well knows, if there’s something incredibly dangerous in the movie water, everyone’s going to flock there with their swimsuits and dangling appendages.

And look at that! There’s a scout camp AND a major new resort on this river, the latter of which is coming online and adhering to Jaws rules of self-preservation. That’s a whole lot of swimsuits and dangly bits for this nonstop wave of toothy terrors. And they’re going to get eaten, because only Maggie and her semi-kidnapped pal Paul seem motivated to try to save anyone and kill the fish.

I’m probably going about this all wrong, because I watched this remake without seeing the original Joe Dante 1978 film first. In my defense, I am a complete sucker for ’90s creature features. It’s just a shame that this is such a terrible one.

Piranha 1995 is only notable for two things. First, Roger Corman made this on the extremely cheap — and I mean extremely. All of the piranha attack footage is outright recycled** from the 1978 film, and the filmmakers molded the plot and character costumes to match the attack scenes from two decades prior. If this was a paper I tried to turn in for a class, it’d get an F for plagiarism.

Even the original stuff doesn’t add anything to this franchise. The main characters make staggeringly stupid moves — yes, let’s drag an unconscious woman from a car accident, tie her up, and throw her onto a raft — and anyone who starts to get bit doesn’t seem to be in a great hurry to pull their limbs out of the water.

The other notable feature is that this is stocked with a lot of recognizable TV actors, from Punky Brewster herself to one of the Baywatch ladies to that guy from The Greatest American Hero to That ’70s Show’s Mila Kunis. In fact, this is Kunis’ first role, where she plays a camper so scared to go in the water… until she overcomes her fear right in time for Piranha Frenzy Day. And then she probably develops a whole new assortment of fears and never touches water ever again.

There’s no denying that Piranha is a belly flop of a film from start to finish. There are a few ridiculous scenes and a hint of some subversive humor, but it’s not enough to keep this afloat.

*A staph infection at a minimum.

**Stolen.

Intermission!

• No guy wants to get compared to Woody Allen
• “Are there any more shacks up here?” “Cabin. This is a cabin.”
• Private investigators can shanghai you to drive them wherever they want
• It takes a while for a body to bloat and rise to the surface, I guess
• Dog skeleton!
• Yeah let’s carry the girl who was just in a car accident — and then tie her up and throw her onto a raft!
• Piranha make bird-like (or dolphin-like?) screeches
• You can get pretty far without a functional set of legs
• Wait, now you’re just burying people without calling the police?
• I’ve never heard a horror film with such a constant ominous score
• Piranha kill more people per year than sharks
• “I am the one who gets to say ‘cut’ Dennis. CUT.”
• This is a movie where even the dog gets it
• Piranha are experts at dismantling rafts
• It’s a jump sandwich!
• Accounts of killer piranha are “awfully boring”
• “I’m kind of like a promotion — you’ve got to earn me.”
• He’s able to hold the camera awfully still while shaking it about
• And it’s time for our hero to assault a cop (with silly boxer shorts)
• The camera crew guy wearing a Carnosaur shirt
• There’s a whole lot of casual boating and swimming and floating on a river that looks like it’d be pretty dangerous even in non-piranha situations
• Upset clown is upset
• The bad guy literally has blood on his hands