10 Most Elaborate Movie Climaxes Ever

When Roger Corman hires you to direct a film, his standards are pretty low. It's entirely based on cost-reward; what sells. His only direction toward Joe Dante when he hired him for Piranha were to include violence, nudity and more than one climax.

Dante delivered diligently. After a swarm of Piranha genetically mutated for warfare are unleashed in a river, any bathers, fishermen and campers are in danger. It's up to local recluse Bradley Whitford to warn the locals - including his own daughter, attending a summer camp on the other end of the lake. Meanwhile, a local resort is having its own grand opening. Both are attacked brutally, with flesh being stripped to the bone and havoc unleashed.

This is the only film that comes to mind that is pro-pollution, as Whitford's only solution is to tread the deadly waters to an underwater, abandoned smelting plant and open the valves to kill off the hoard.

It's a Jaws-send up, to be sure, but one with a great sense of humour about itself. Even Steven Spielberg liked it, forcing Universal to drop an injunction against the picture and offering Dante a directing gig later on.