Shout! Factory Dishes the Dirt on Piranha and Humanoids from the Deep Special Edition Blu-ray Releases

Both Special Edition Blu-ray and DVD releases of Piranha and Humanoids from the Deep feature anamorphic widescreen presentation of the movie and a spectacular array of special bonus content, including all-new in-depth interviews and commentaries with cast and crew, rare behind-the-scenes footage, reversible cover and more. Each Blu-ray and DVD is sold separately. Blu-ray is priced to own at $26.97 and $19.93 for the DVD. Dare you to take the plunge with the original Piranha and Humanoids at home before you put on those 3-D shades for the remake of Piranha in 3-D coming to theaters nationwide late August. See where the phenomenon began!

Lost River Lake was a thriving resort until they discovered … Piranha!

In 1978, audiences discovered Piranha, widely considered one of the very best films “inspired” by the success of Jaws, and for more than 30 years Piranha has been one of the true cult gems in the Roger Corman canon.

For the first time in anamorphic widescreen, Piranha is being seen the way it was meant to be seen: Bigger, badder, bloodier and more BITING than ever! This summer at Lost River Resort, the fish are most certainly biting!

While searching for missing teenagers, rookie skip-tracer Maggie McKeon (Heather Menzies) and booze-soaked river rat Paul Grogan (Bradford Dillman) stumble upon a top-secret military laboratory conduction genetic research on piranha fish for the purpose of developing the most lethal form of biological warfare imaginable.

When the deadly eating machines are accidentally released from the compound, they’re soon headed downstream, consuming everything — and anyone — in their path. With Paul and Maggie in hot pursuit, the piranha’s next stop is the children’s summer camp, where Paul’s young daughter is vacationing, and then the newly-opened, multi-million-dollar water resort. Time is running out, and the piranha are hungry!

Piranha marked the solo directorial debut of Joe Dante (The Howling, Gremlins and Gremlins 2: The New Batch), after a long apprenticeship under Roger Corman’s tutelage at New World Pictures, and also marked the first produced screenplay of future indie-film icon and two-time Academy Award® nominee John Sayles (Lone Star, Passion Fish, Eight Men Out). Sharp-eyed viewers will also spot cameo appearances by both Dante and Sayles in this film!

The film also featured one of the most star-studded casts ever assembled for a Corman production: Daytime Emmy® and Golden Globe® winner Bradford Dillman (The Way We Were, Compulsion, Escape from the Planet of the Apes), Heather Menzies (TV’s Captain America and Logan’s Run), Academy Award® nominee and Golden Globe® winner Kevin McCarthy (Death of a Salesman, Invasion of the Body Snatchers) and Emmy® nominee Keenan Wynn (Dr. Strangelove, Robert Altman’s Nashville), as well as Emmy® winner Barbara Steele (The Pit and the Pendulum, Caged Heat, Mario Bava’s Black Sunday), Dick Miller (A Bucket of Blood, The Terminator, Martin Scorsese’s After Hours), Paul Bartel (Death Race 2000, The Usual Suspects), Belinda Balaski (The Howling, Small Soldiers, Explorers), Richard Deacon (TV’s The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mothers-in-Law) and, in his final screen appearance, Barry Brown (Bad Company, Daisy Miller, The Ultimate Thrill).

Not only was Piranha a box-office hit – becoming one of New World Pictures’ biggest worldwide hits – but it also earned rave reviews from critics, who appreciated its fast pacing, energetic cast, clever conspiracy satire, inventive special effects and, of course, the scares. Many critics considered it second-best only to Jaws but far superior to the “official” Jaws sequels — including Jaws 2, which opened the same year. Piranha won the Saturn Award for Best Editing (shared by Dante and Mark Goldblatt) and was nominated as Best Horror Film.

Like so many Roger Corman productions, Piranha served as a career springboard for many of its participants, including director Dante, screenwriter Sayles, and producer Jon Davison (Airplane!, Robocop and RoboCop 2). Future Academy Award® winner Rob Bottin (Total Recall, The Thing, Se7en) provided special makeup effects in what marked his first screen credit, and the visual effects team boasted not one, but two, future Oscar® winners: Phil Tippett (Jurassic Park, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back) and Chris Walas (The Fly, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Gremlins).

Perhaps the greatest tribute to Piranha’s sustained popularity is that this summer will see the release of Piranha 3-D to the nation’s movie screens. While the big-budget remake will undoubtedly put the bite on moviegoers, true fans know where it all began … with the original, classic Piranha.

PIRANHA SPECIAL EDITION BLU-RAY AND DVD SPECIAL FEATURES:

New World trailers

One good bite deserves another!

Two years after the success of Piranha, Corman and New World Pictures went back to the water and came up with a winner. Humanoids from the Deep was yet another box-office bonanza.

In the sleepy fishing village of Noyo, the fish aren’t biting — and that’s the problem. The town’s faltering economy, dependent entirely on the fishing industry, has exacerbated ongoing, racially-charged tensions between the local fishermen, who want a cannery to be constructed in the town, and the Native American population, who most definitely don’t.

But something else is biting — and worse. A genetic experiment on salmon has produced a species of aquatic monstrosities that are half-man and half-fish … and constantly on the rampage! The body count is rising. Men are being mauled to death, but the female victims suffer a far worse fate: The monsters are mating with them, trying to propagate their horrific species.

Local fisherman Jim Drake (Doug McClure) and scientist Susan Drake (Ann Turkel) join forces to investigate the cause of this insidious invasion, but time is running out. Noyo’s annual Salmon Festival is about to take place on the town’s boardwalk, and some uninvited guests are planning to crash the party in bloodthirsty fashion, culminating in a bloodbath that pits man against monster.

Amid the film’s non-stop action and carnage, however, are also subtle messages about corporate corruption, preservation of the underwater ecology (years before Greenpeace hit the headlines!), and the importance of community. If the residents of Noyo are to survive, they will have to put aside their cultural and political differences and band together. If not, Noyo is doomed.

Humanoids from the Deep proved to be expectedly commercial, but also proved unexpectedly controversial. Credited director Barbara Peters (billed as Barbara Peeters) contended that many of the film’s gorier scenes had been added to the film after principal photography. That may be true, but some of these scenes are the ones most fondly — and fearfully — remembered by the film’s legion of followers. Then the MPAA (Motion Picture of America) threatened to slap the film with an X rating unless some of its more shocking moments were edited down or eliminated altogether. Nevertheless, these controversies didn’t count where it mattered the most — at the box-office, as Humanoids from the Deep became one of New World Pictures’ most popular releases up to that point.

Even more surprising is that the film received good reviews. Although he called it “fast, occasionally hilarious gutter trash,” esteemed film critic Leonard Maltin also awarded it three out of four stars!

This release of Humanoids from the Deep will truly be something spectacular. This version has never been seen before in the United States, as it was taken from the inter-positive from the uncut international version in high definition.

The cast of Humanoids from the Deep is headed by genre favorite Doug McClure (Warlords of Atlantis, The Land That Time Forgot and The People That Time Forgot), Golden Globe® nominee Ann Turkel (The Cassandra Crossing, 99 and 44/100% Dead) and Emmy Award® nominee Vic Morrow (Blackboard Jungle, The Bad News Bears, 1990: The Bronx Warriors).

Future Oscar® winner Rob Bottin again provided the film’s spectacular — and spectacularly gory — special effects, including a climactic birth scene that rivals the one in the original Alien! The film’s menacing and foreboding score was composed by James Horner (Titanic, Aliens, A Beautiful Mind), himself the future recipient of two Academy Awards®. Production assistant Gale Anne Hurd would go on to become one of the most successful female producers in Hollywood history, with such blockbusters as The Terminator, Aliens, Armageddon and Terminator 2: Judgment Day to her credit.

HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP SPECIAL EDITION BLU-RAY AND DVD FEATURES INCLUDE: