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Cult classic Piranha is a great Texas-made horror movie shot at Aquarena Springs in San Marcos, Texas
Jim Kiest, Staff writer
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Like quicksand pits or cobras poised to strike, piranha attacks are one of those exotic dangers that are much more familiar from the movies than real life. Take a dip in the wrong South American river or displease the wrong Bond villain, and some poor sap disappears in a froth of roiling water, blood and screams.
The nasty little biters came mighty close to home, though, in “Piranha,” a 1978 horror movie that was one of several low-budget man vs. beast movies such as “Orca” and “Grizzly” that surfaced in the wake of “Jaws.” Scenes from the movie were shot along the Guadalupe River in Seguin, at Lake Austin and in Aquarena Springs, the San Marcos theme park that closed in 1994.
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Sandy s father was in the oil business, and he settled his family into a nice suburban house in Lakewood, on South Wadsworth Boulevard. It was there that Sandy s older brother, Eric, came up with the idea of making bumperstickers in the classic green-and-white Colorado license-plate design, with a silhouette of the mountains and the word Native in the center. By then, the family had lived in Colorado about a decade, which in the late ’70s certainly qualified you as a longtimer, if not a native.
Although there was some short-lived competition from the now-defunct Colorado Native Society, which was putting out similar stickers for members, Eric s model took off. Working off the success of Native, he designed a number of related versions, then expanded the business, trademarking the concept in six states, including Colorado.
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You can call it zeitgeist. You can call it ideaspace. You can even call it coincidence. However you label it, there’s occasionally a fundamental alignment where multiple creatives end up working on the same kind of project at the same time. That’s how you can end up with several Wyatt Earp films in the same year or more than one book from the point of view of Jack the Ripper or even several firehouse dramas.
Or maybe it’s just the full moon.
Forty years ago, in 1981, big Hollywood studios released not one, not two, but three werewolf-related pictures within a span of five months:
Week ahead, April 12 to April 16, 2021: We are where we eat norwich.edu - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from norwich.edu Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.