Piranha Women

Coming from the director of Beverly Hills Vamp, it's an improvement, but that's only saying so much. There is a good idea here with a mad doctor creating fish hybrid females. I just the drama was mixed in better.

There are seeds of a good concept with the protagonist's girlfriend ending up with the inhabitants and the boyfriend trying to figure out what is going on. The biggest mistake is how it focuses too much on the boyfriend. If more time was devoted to the other characters, I think this would have been a solid B movie. Unfortunately, Piranha Women takes off right when it begins to end. And once it ends, we feel a damp and unsatisfied conclusion. I feel it would have been better to take a cue from Joe Dante's The Howling. A much better movie about a secret society of monsters hiding in a world. This could have reached those heights if only more focus was placed on the other unique elements plugging into it.

How does FOR keep getting assignments? He's barely better than Jim Wynorski, who admits he makes crap. This is just above the level of crap and, at under an hour in length, I have to wonder if they A)Ran out of Money or B) FOR got a better paying job and just ended it. Charles Band, another semi-schlockmeister who has produced a few good movies (Trancers, Zone Troopers) produced this waste of time. Basically, the direction is subpar, the acting is mostly bad, the topless women look good, but the 'pirhana' effects (sharp teeth and toothy breasts) are bad. This stuff would get someone kicked off Face/Off. The 'hero' is kind of a dunce and the cop is very much a moron. Guy couldn't find a clue if he tripped over it. The end has some of the worst creature effects (Think Creeping Terror level) and no explanation at all. If you have an hour to spare, you may laugh... or you may cry. Just bad all around.

Piranha Women is a good little short horror film from "Full Moon Pictures" by Fred Open Ray.

An island doctor is using piranha DNA to cure sick women. When Richard's girlfriend goes to the doctor, asks him to stay out all night, then leaves while he's at work the next day he decides to investigate what's going on.

The previous evening, Richard and his buddy/coworker, Jeffrey go to a small local bar. Jeffrey leaves with a woman from the bar, and ends up dead. This leaves Richard as the main suspect. He returns to the bar to try to figure out what happened and clear his name.

He learns about the piranha DNA and sets out to rescue his girlfriend.

The idea of "Piranha Women" is pretty cool. The effects aren't bad for this type of movie. Worth checking out 7/10.

Directed by beloved director Fred Olen Ray, Piranha Women is relatively a simple odd story with an interesting concept but it doesn't quite reach the heights that it possibly could have. It is very silly and not meant to be taken too serious.

With a run time of under one hour, this is quite a short film where everything does move quickly, yet things aren't exactly fully developed.

The lead protagonist is the standard generic likeable character we are to root for. The main problem with the film is there is too much focus on him, and not enough on these "Piranha women" (Keep Chambers, Carrie Overguaard). The acting is subpar to average as we would expect.

The ending is rushed and it gets a little silly and over the top, the transformations in that.

What do I mean by that? I mean that the story, budget, genre all demand camp, but the writing and score want a serious tone, as though we're actually going to be in suspense.

I've noticed this problem in many latter-day Full Moon productions and I wish they would give it up. They need to go back and study what made movies like HEAD OF THE FAMILY and HIDEOUS, or even OBLIVION, so special.

Conflicted tone and an underdeveloped script spell doom for this wanna-B-movie.

Shary Nassimi was perfectly cast as Dr. Sinclair! Very convincing as a mild-mannered practitioner but also able to provide a sinister edge. Unfortunate music choices undermine the subtlety of his performance.

Other performances of note include Keep Chambers' and Carrie Overgaard's. I especially enjoyed Chambers' performance as Shauna. For whatever reason, I never liked Sof Puchley's character. I'm not sure if that is due to the writing or to her performance in the role. I think it's more the former.

Bobby Rice was sufficient as Richard. The two detectives were serviceable, though I blame bad writing and an uncertain tone for their poor performances. They were playing dopey detectives in a movie that for some reason was playing it straight.

That last point speaks to the larger issue of the movie's development. It wants to rush things along, but the writing isn't tight enough to support the pace, so I never felt suspense or concern.

If this movie were a bit more campy, if the music was less over-the-top, if the writing were tighter, I would rate this movie much higher. And it really is a shame, because this could have been a wonderful flick.

Keep Chambers and Carrie Overgaard have a few nude scenes to keep things interesting.