Lee Majors heads a crack team of thieves who carry out a daring robbery in Brazil, they hide the precious stones at the bottom of a lake but don't know that it is infested with flesh eating piranha. They decide to leave them there for 60 days but double-crossers within the gang decide to grab them for themselves, with predictable results. The first half plays out like a crime thriller but it becomes a horror movie when the remaining crooks join a camera crew onboard a boat, when a tropical storm strikes the boat starts to sink. As a kid in the 1970's I loved the TV series "The Six Million Dollar Man" and Majors was one of the first actors who's name I can remember, he plays it very cool here and for his fans this film is well worth a watch. Also amongst the cast are the wonderful Karen Black and 1970's supermodel Franciscus Margaux, who plays what else but a model! The robbery at the start and dam scene near the end both use miniature sets, these are pretty good. Sadly the piranha attacks mainly consist of victims in the water surrounded by blood, we do see the fish biting people later on but it's nothing impressive. However an underwater swimmer encounters partially eaten corpses which is very effective. Shot in Brazil the scenery is nice and the musical score is pretty cool but the 101 minutes running time is too long. There has never been a human death recorded as a piranha attack and indeed people swim and bathe in piranha infested waters, however in the nature strikes back genre they can offer fun opportunities. Killer Fish has a bigger budget than "Piranha" (1978) but the latter is by far the better film.

The name of schlockmeister Anthony M. Dawson doesn't bode well, and the change of title from 'The Naked Sun' to 'Killer Fish' (not to mention the opening declaration that it's a presentation by Sir Lew Grade) confirms that it's just high concept nonsense.

But cross-eyed, big-haired Karen Black alone makes the film worth seeing. Heaven knows why she bothers with a jerk like James Franciscus who actually seeded the lake where the gang's ill-gotten gains are stashed and just stands there while Black does the man's work actually going down to retrieve the spoils looking seriously fit in a classic black wetsuit.

Entertaining B-movie fun from Italian director Antonio Margheriti, here going for an international approach with a leading American cast and location filming in Brazil and Rio De Janeiro. Otherwise it's business as usual as Margheriti keeps things moving nicely along with his trademark miniature effects work as the B-grade cast go through the paces and look to be enjoying themselves. The special effects are pretty poor, it has to be said, and the film is episodic in nature with some parts much more entertaining than others. However it ends with a rousing finale in which the entire cast find themselves on the middle of the piranha-infested lake in a sinking ship and macho heroics and dastardly traitorous tricks rule the day. I always enjoy such plot contrivances as this and time spent waiting for the next expendable to get munched makes for an enjoyable viewing experience.

Once again Margheriti practises with mixing up the genres. At heart this is an adventure film and as such is full of colourful exotic locales and attractive actors and actresses. However, other genre elements often come into play. There are romances and human drama between the principal characters. The opening of the film, complete with a full-scale planned robbery, is straight out of an old crime flick. Then halfway through, elements of the disaster movie surface with the arrival of a tornado (a really poorly animated one, it has to be said - it'll have you gasping and reaching for the rewind button) which rips through the scenery destroying everything in its path, setting things up for the taut finale on the sinking boat. And of course, considering director Margheriti's pedigree, there are the expected horror elements on view too.

Lots of people get eaten by the piranha, it goes without saying, dying in pools of blood and gristle and screaming. We get to see partially-eaten skeletons resting on the ocean floor in genuinely macabre underwater explorations and the piranha themselves - the animation isn't half bad, it has to be said - as they rip great chunks out of their victims. The characterisation is rather poor, it has to be said, with all of the major players just one-dimensional stereotypes - Lee Majors as the rough hero, James Franciscus as the bad guy. The exception to this rule is Karen Black, who has fun playing a multi-layered criminal torn between her love for Majors and joining Franciscus in his plan to get the loot. Although she times overacts to an embarrassing extent, overall Black's presence can be regarded as a plus thanks to her interesting character.

Majors of course was in hot demand at the time due to the success of THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN and he makes for a dependable square-jawed hero with plenty of eyebrow-raising. No revelations on the acting front but at least he has plenty of heroics to get his teeth into. The supporting cast of pretty ladies like Margaux Hemingway and Marisa Berenson is easy on the eye, whilst James Franciscus has the role of the great unscrupulous bad guy and plays the part with relish. Although made on an obvious low budget, some of Margheriti's miniature effects work hits the mark, especially in the sequence in which a dam breaks as the result of the tornado and the flood waters crash down into the valley, all good stuff. And the last twenty minutes of excitement is enough to make you forgive KILLER FISH for the flaws in the story that have come before and the occasional lapse in interest. A flawed and minor film, yes, but there's enough here to satisfy the appetite of the thrill-seeking genre fan.