what is this psycho woman doing to the water-ski guy?!?!?!

#Monsterdon #Piranha

so the coronel gets eaten after calling that lady a cow, right?

#Monsterdon #Piranha

#monsterdon Boats get air! Cop cars get air! River swimmers GET AIR! From thrashing and being nibbled to death! YAY!!! What we are here for, finally! EAT PEOPLE! GO BITEY FISHIES!

To think of the ridiculous amounts of plot wankers had to get through just to see some bikini tits.....thank fuck for the Internet

Why are there frogmen?

#monsterdon

Getting the most out of stolen police car, who hasn't dreamed of such an adventure?!

#monsterdon

Now she wants to hide under a boat and sleep, so Mastodon

#monsterdon

characters so far in this #monsterdon

team schmuck:
main girl
fishing vest guy (now just in flannel, without the vest)

team summer camp:
girl counselor
boy counselor
daughter with surprisingly relevant fear of fish

team army:
colonel big hat
actual science lady
army mooks (many)

team blood puddle:
horny teens (RIP)
straw hat guy (RIP)
weird science guy (RIP)
fishing dad (RIP)

team fish:
evil bitey fish (protagonists)
gojirafish
cute amphibifish (will we ever see them again?

#monsterdon This jaunty string music during the (very, very awkward) crane shot of a crowd is bringing me right back to that improbably long scene in Tentacles (1977) at the regatta

#monsterdon #piranha1978

This is why American jails have those scary cybertruck toilets now, isn't it?

#monsterdon

takes notes on how to escape from a 1970s jail

#monsterdon

Monsterdon season of films which are in other films and it goes recursive into insanity

Is that that guy from Gremlins and The Terminator who was in ever movie during the 80s?

#monsterdon

OK who’s got the theremin #monsterdon #piranha1978

MIC scientist lady said there are things more important than people’s lives ―but scientists don’t knowingly kill people.

#Monsterdon #Piranha

his name was Bob Hope. that must have been a big laugh at the theater

#Monsterdon #Piranha

Scientists are immune to fear. Shut up! I'm not afraid of no mutant fish. #monsterdon

"I'm not afraid... I'm a scientist" - my new motto #monsterdon

they jumped off the raft destroyed by the demon fish and right into the poison ivy patch.

#Monsterdon #Piranha

Okay, so the dam has an attendant who is about to open the dam, and while he is doing that, he is listening to a 50s black and white style movie about the dam. Because he stumbles with the lever a few times, the Fishing Vest Guy has enough time to reach the dam guy and stop him from opening the dam. Shockingly, the movie is not over yet.

#monsterdon

#monsterdon NOT THE AIR HORN

NOT THE DAM SPILL GATES

NOT THE FUNNY CARTOON SOUNDTRACK LENDING AN AURA OF HILARITY TO A CLIMATE OF DOOM

The old science dude is a proper grade A Mad Scientist and I hope he survives!

#monsterdon

"They can still get you in an inner tube"

(I think that happened in Jaws?)

#Piranha #Monsterdon

These victims aren't shrieking enough like people being eaten by many ting fish

I love how the guy playing the old science dude is having a Shatner time of things.

The US army would destroy a biosphere, that I can believe. Brits did.

#monsterdon

#monsterdon Are those gibbering sounds part of the music track or are we supposed to believe it's the killer fish??

Not an American but as I understand it Summer Camps serve the purpose that boarding schools served in our ridiculous culture, a slaughter pit of Darwinian survival?

#monsterdon

Meanwhile, the main characters are rowing their raft down the river, and the weird guy explains that there are piranhas in the water, the titular #BiteyFish. They were freed when they drained by the water.

We discover the old guy's pier, with a concerned dog by it, and we find that #StrawHat guy's feet have been eaten and they he crawled up the shore and bled to death. The Fishing Vest Guy sadly says "We'll I'll get a shovel; he wouldn't want to be buried in town." which is sad.

#monsterdon

and we enter the portion of the human veal for fish.

#Monsterdon #Piranha

Okay, so at this summer camp there's a lady counselor and a dude counselor, who are the good cop and bad cops of getting little girls to swim. The lady counselor explains that there are no mean fish in the water, just nice fish that eat plants and not people. Normally, this would be a correct thing to say, were this not a #monsterdon movie about killer fish.

The dude counselor instead says that the little girl is a coward for not swimming and she needs more intestinal fortitude.

Bearded Camp Counselor needs to become fish food ASAP #Piranha1978 🐟 #Monsterdon

"If you don't fit in you won't get your badge. Don't make us put you in the Hut again"

#monsterdon

Okay, we get some character development where the fishing vest guy, who I think we're supposed to think is hot, used to work in a steel mill that was closed because it was hurting fish and also his wife left him. Anyway, they have offscreen sex. That's not even a joke by me, they directly pointed that out, and then shift to the next morning.

#monsterdon

Because the weird guy didn't drive very far, our heroes reach the car crash site on foot and put a bandage on his head. He explains that the heroes have made a terrible mistake draining the pod, this has let the monsters out and now they will kill everyone.

I guess he was the guy sweeping the floors at the secret fish factory; I think he might have been more persuasive if he led with "don't let the monsters out" rather than "WAAAGH IM GONNA STRANGLE U" #monsterdon

#monsterdon "I say we drain the pool, it's the quickest way to see if they're down there."

"You can't do that without someone's permission!"

Anyone remember the bit in The Monolith Monsters where they were worried about dynamiting the pass to cut off the spread of the killer rocks towards the town, because it was private property??

wait, since when she bosses him around. i may have missed something. do they know each other?

she just screams for the kids in a test site and doesn’t bring a bull horn?

#Monsterdon #Piranha

I just hide in the old abandoned army lab all day. Just me and my stop-motion critters #piranha1978 #monsterdon

OMG i miss my dad’s Jeep. ours was yellow. learned to drive manual (stick shift ?) in that thing

#Monsterdon #Piranha

Okay, we get another scene change so that we can introduce another character, a lady who's car broke down; she might be the lady I mistakenly thought was a science lady in the beginning. Anyway, she drives a noisy jeep and then it breaks down outside of Fishing Vest Guy's house as he cooks a fish. She explains that she is looking for some missing teenagers who may or may not have been eaten by evil bloodthirsty fish. #monsterdon

so who is 1970s Hermione?

#Monsterdon #Piranha

Shark Jaws was a real video game and is thought to be the first example of a video game tie-in to a movie. It was unofficial of course. Everyone was trying to get in on the success of Jaws.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_Jaws

#monsterdon

I hope this is a gay couple

#monsterdon

Laugh all you want but that video game isn't spying on the player and mining crypto

#monsterdon

We now get a title sequence, which shows a tastefully bright red "PIRANA" word melting into a blood puddle and merging with the sea.

Also, note that this #monsterdon decided to show its audience nipples Before the title credit, which might be a sign that they thought that the audience would get super bored early on and so they needed a nipple to keep people in the theater.

Okay, after about a minute of splashing the boy has been turned into a Blood Puddle, presumably by the evil fish. Then the girl screams and is probably about to be turned into a blood puddle; she tries to climb out of the water but then disappears.

So far, the bitey fish movie is skipping a lot of preamble. #monsterdon

#monsterdon MONSTER CHOMP

Four minutes in and David has been devoured by bitey fish! Whoops, and sounds like Barbara is having a similarly rough time in that weird industrial concrete pool in the dead of night behind a barbed wire fence too. Getting off to a swift start here tonight!

"David david david"

His name was Tom.....

#monsterdon

btw i thought it was the 1972 not the 1978 movie we were watching

#Monsterdon #Piranha

dropping my #monsterdon thread for "Piranha", a movie where some fish bite people! Monsterdon is a thing each week where we watch an old monster movie and make fun of it. Mute the hash tag if that's not your jam, otherwise, you're gonna get spammed with a bajillion posts about fish biting people, some of them from me!

#monsterdon They're coming to bite you, Barbara!

directed by james cameron. good to know we can all start small. #monsterdon #piranha2

Quick inventory of laws broken that I could remember:

And she's the HERO

#monsterdon

#monsterdon

Props to this movie for having Fishing Vest Guy do a heroic sacrifice instead of surviving (I don't think he made it?). Also his daughter had her own heroic arc. Also pollution saved the day, which is usually not a thing pollution does, in real life or movies? Also there was a lot of splashing and blood. This movie was odd.

#monsterdon

i think she is secretly a piranha!

#monsterdon

#Monsterdon 🏊 🏊‍♂️ 🏊‍♀️ 🐟 🐟 🐟 🩸 🩸💀 😱

And they DO fuck off into the sea!

…into the ocean #monsterdon #piranha1978

He's fine. He can just walk it off
#monsterdon

#monsterdon They have asked that wimpy nylon line to do EVERYTHING. It finally gave up, but not before the hand coming out of the water. *ding dong* bring out yer dead!

Okay, so flannel guy almost reaches the pollute button but then the fish get him and start eating him right as he pushes the pollute button, which is actually a wheel you turn. Then the pollution starts leaking, and the main girl revs up the engine, pulling him out of the bitey fish'es fishy jaws. But alas, it may not be so, as the rope is torn. #monsterdon

Terror. Horror Death.

Film at 11.

gets me every time.

#monsterdon

This is actually an alternate origin story for The Toxic Avenger.

#monsterdon

no shark has jumped, only an exploding boat

#Monsterdon #Piranha

@Taweret@octodon.social land piranha are the true danger!

#monsterdon

#monsterdon Folks, we present 90% of the films budget:

"They're eating the guests, sir." #monsterdon

“What about the piranhas‽”
“They’re eating the guests, sir.”

#Monsterdon #Piranha1978

Alright, so my obvious take is... could they tried like fishing to catch the bitey fish? Like get a net and catch them? Or maybe just put some meat on a fish hook and catch them from the shore?

Grenade fishing is also an option if we want to be more American about it. #monsterdon

#monsterdon Phone in a briefcase. That's an analog phone. That call was someones Christmas bonus! LOL.

Kirsten Dunst survived! #monsterdon #piranha1978

blondie girl is really smartie girl, staying out of that water

#Monsterdon #Piranha

Mastodon Child saved lives, remember that folks

#monsterdon

The police car was labeled Texas Department of Public Safety, so I guess the movie is set in Texas, not just filmed there? #Monsterdon #Piranha1978 #BiteyFish

This is gloriously gratuitous #monsterdon #piranha1978

Mastodon Child sees everyone flailing and in panic and sighs, before getting into action

#monsterdon

I'm counting that near car collision as a jump scare

#Piranha #Monsterdon

she’s summoning the piranha through the plumbing?

#Monsterdon #Piranha

That girl was set up to fail

Patriarchy

#monsterdon

If monsters were real Earth would use "small town events in America" and "Tokyo" to lure them all out.

#monsterdon

how to break out of redneck jail 101

#monsterdon

I would have used the top of the toilet to smack the cop in the face with though, after using the tits to lure him in.

I was dangerous as a crossdresser, I can tell you

#monsterdon

#monsterdon I bet she could say anything and he'd turn it into a question. He is an inverse bechdel test. His failure means every woman in the cast is immediately super relevant and important.

@arisummerland I knew I'd seen that name before! yayy! Dick Miller! #monsterdon

Not being into this army plot and not keen about getting gag orders, we decide to steal a car from the army and escape. We get a slighly horny, almost LGBT inclusive plot where the fishing vest guy asks the main girl tries to distract a guard to steal a truck, and the girl is like "but what if he's gay" and then the guys like "then i'll distract him". Then she asks if the impassive guard is gay, which he doesn't like I guess, then distracts him with boobs. #monsterdon

Flash your tits at the Police lady, then they'll believe you

#monsterdon

loving the headline on the fake paper "dogs tear up newborn baby"

Is that the Sports section?

#monsterdon

"Are you gay?"

Flashes tits as a distraction

the fucking 70s...

#monsterdon

#monsterdon So, tits are just a red herring then. FINE.

So are we gonna see the cool mutant land fish again in this movie? The little goblin guy who was watching them in the lab and funny godzilla looking fish? I liked those guys, they seemed nice. I hope they come back. #monsterdon

We get a new interlude where the army shows up, driving in on its army trucks and some jeeps. I would have added a random tank to this scene for no fucking reason. The relevant army characters are Colonel Big Hat, who asks the main characters grumpy questions, and Actual Science Lady, who explains that bitey fish normally like warm water, not cold water. They try to recruit the main characters to team army, but as newly minted peaceniks they are unhappy at this prospect. #monsterdon

Chekhov’s obstacle course #monsterdon #piranha1978

Our Accursed Float Trip is cut short, when the bitey fish discover that they can eat rope and start eating the ropes holding our shitty raft together, causing it to dissolve into logs. We distract the fish with the body of the weird science dude, then make it to the shore, having acquired one bonus child. Then Fishing Vest Guy runs off to tell the dam guy not to open the dam because then everyone will die. He literally runs. I like that aspect.

#monsterdon

It’s the hemp rope! These fish hate hemp!

#monsterdon #piranha1978

yeah the fish are loud as hell. how did you not notice them?

#monsterdon

His pants aren't even touched

#monsterdon

Further wandering, we find the boy who is trapped on a canoe after the bitey fish ate his dad. Feeling bad at his life's work and/or concerned for the kid, the weird science guy decides to swim to the canoe and rescue the kid, so naturally he is eaten by the fish and turned partly into a blood puddle.

Eventually they get their huck fin raft to the canoe to take the kid aboard and give the weird science guy a more poignant death scene. #monsterdon.

#monsterdon Children splashing in a lazy river has a lot of similarities to a free sample lane at a Costco. Same sort of frenzied feeding pattern. Drops of blood everywhere. A costco employee touching her nearly nibbled off fingers... THE PUBLIC ARE A MENACE!

Meanwhile at the camp, the girl counselor is trying to help the daughter get out of swimming by making up excuses. Then we cut to a random boat where the bitey fish eat a dad fishing while his kid watches.

Then we get more backstory where the weird guy explains these evil mutant fish were created by the army to destroy the river systems of North Vietnam. We then get some plot... there's a dam that this river goes to that opens periodically, by a resort. uh-oh. #monsterdon

Piranhas go brrrrrrrrrrrrrr

#monsterdon #piranha1978

it’s blonder than blonde children. nobody cares if they’re made into human veal tartar for fish.

#Monsterdon #Piranha

As all good human beings are, I'm glad the human died and not the dog

#monsterdon

We go back to the nice guy with a straw hat, who is chilling by the river with the dog, our favorite character. He splashes a little bit in the water and then the evil fish eat him. The dog barks at them a few times. RIP.

#monsterdon