Before screenwriter John Sayles was known as the lyrical, incisive, and insightful scribe behind some of the most human films of the ‘80s and ‘90s (Eight Men Out, Passion Fish, Lone Star, The Secret of Roan Inish) he was something of a grindhouse wunderkind, churning out quick ‘n’ dirty schlock scripts that—despite being intended as low-budget genre ripoffs—managed to maintain a grasp on something resembling art. His first film was the mean-spirited Jaws riff Piranha, and he followed that up two years later with... a bigger, more ambitious Jaws riff, starring Robert Forster as a cop who descends into the Chicago sewers to face a giant man-eating mutant alligator.