Piranha II: The Spawning (1982)

Such a frustrating disappointment

Dreadfully Boring

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I can remember first coming across the first piranha, as it was on a VHS tape in my mother collection that only bore the first title. I remember watching it as a kid and being absolutely terrified as a child because up until that point a kid could never comprehend the local terror of something invading a lake to kill children and counselors alike. I remember catching Piranhas II briefly when I was a bit older and had a very vague idea of what it was about. So I decided to revisit it and see if it had any of that classic quirky charm that made the first Film directed by Joe Dante, a rather charming knockoff with just a bit of its own magic that so many jaws rip offs lacked. I can say this film doesn't really have any of the charm or interest of the original,but still tries to up the ante in terms of creativity. The plot seems less connected to the first title as it really tries to shoehorn in the connection via a mention and it seems less than interesting. The cast is pretty standard as far as most 80s casts go(keep an eye out for a really young Lance Henriksen). I wouldn't recommend this as a first choice, or a last choice,but I would say that if you have braved more than a few average horrors and are craving some more aquatic terror than this one will more than easily fill that void since it is still heaps better than the rather dismal new films which lack the charm of being an 80s movie and try to replicate bad on purpose.

I thought the first movie was pretty bad, but at least it ripped off Jaws, shamelessly and in a fun way and it had action and a general fast pace.But the sequel, being a James Cameron movie, I expected it to be better than the original. When it fact it's worse. Much much worse.First of all the cheap look of this movie, makes The Terminator's low budget seem like an expensive movie. And the movie cost less than 145.000 dollars to make. But still, shooting on Jamaica, they could have taken advantage of the scenery and given us some nice land and sea shots. This movie has none of that. The weather is even pretty bad during the first part of the movie.Second of all, the actors are all hideously ugly. And the boy and his mom seem to have an incestuous disturbing relationship.The acting is embarrassing at best. Except from Lance Henriksen who is below average. But not much more than that Trisha O' Neil gives the best performance of the entire cast. She reminds me a little of Ripley in Aliens in looks and acting.Steve Marachuk is doing a decent job.But the feel of the movie is like watching some nasty 70'ies porn movie.And for James Cameron being the master of creature movies during the 80'ies: The Terminator and Aliens, the flying piranhas are embarrassingly badly done.Lots of gore. But almost no action what so ever. In the third act when all of the hotel guests are attacked by the flying piranhas, it would have been a great chance for some action, but even here the movie disappoints. That scene is over in a couple of minutes and is as badly done as every other scene with the piranhas. And don't even get me started on the toy-helicopter being blown up or the fake explosion of the underwater-wreck which is also a model combined with shaky camera and sound effects to create the illusion of the explosion.As for the story-part, I didn't even realized until the very end that the boy was Lance Henriksens son. And that's bad writing. Also not something I would expect from James Cameron.I' m amazed but also glad that he was allowed to direct The Terminator after directing this crap. Also amazing he could get a budget of 6 million dollars for The Terminator as he had not proved himself even remotely with Pirahnas 2.Avoid this crap at all cost.

Funny to think, before Avatar, Titanic, True Lies, Terminator 2, Aliens, The Abyss, The Terminator, James Cameron was just trying to make it himself. After quitting being a truck driver, he was just the editor on Piranha 2 and somehow got shoved into the director's seat. I can see why he skims over this movie when in interviews people ask about what his life was like before The Terminator. It's fun to see what are the first works are of a huge Hollywood name. I did see this movie when I was a kid and even then I have to say that this was one of the silliest movies I had ever seen in my life. I mean, flying piranhas? I get it, they were trying to make the fish seem impossible to escape from at this point, under water or on land, you just couldn't get away from these monsters. But these monsters looked like something you could get at Spencer's Gifts for a Halloween party.Off the coast of a Caribbean island, a young couple flee the hotel to have sex in the sea. But they swim into a sunken wreck which is also a piranha lair and they are both killed and eaten by the unseen piranha. The next day, a group of tourists are taking the diving courses provided by Anne Kimbrough, an employee of the Hotel Elysium. One of her divers swims into the wreck, which she has strictly forbidden to her divers. Leaving Tyler to take over and lead the others to the surface, she discovers almost immediately that her 'missing' student has swum into the wreck and been killed there when his badly chewed up body is found. With the help of her estranged husband, Steve, they must figure a way to stop these evil flying piranha.Now one of the great things about this film I have to say is the first scene. This couple goes underwater to have sex, that is something I have to say I have never seen on the wackiness level for un-needed nudity. Other than that, I don't think there was anything that good about the film even on a camp level. But given the credit where it's due, you could really see talent behind James. As an editor, he did the best he could with what he had. It's like handing over a broken stick house and saying to fix it, he did the best he could, but just couldn't really save the film. But Lance Henriksen is the only actor in the film who actually puts a little effort into this movie and I could see why he made it above the other actors in this movie.I don't know if I could recommend this film, it just depends on the mood you're in. If you're looking to see all of James Cameron's work or Lance Henrikson, I would say to go for it. But just a warning in advance, this is an over the top silly movie. Some moments work and some don't, there are some laughable scenes, but most of the film is oddly boring for a film about flying fish. Now I would watch a documentary about these flying fish if James made one today, either that or he should've added the flying piranha to his blockbuster film Titanic. I think he would've gotten the full 11 out of 11 Oscar wins if he added those. Anyways, just don't expect anything special out of this movie, just remember, there was a time before his submarine missions deep below the seas being one of the most powerful men in Hollywood he slept on a friend's couch just trying to make a name for himself.2/10

"Piranha II – the Spawning" is the tale of a burgeoning beach-side resort town that is besieged by razor-toothed grunions. While local biologist (O'Neil) courts her latest beau (Marachuk), her estranged husband and local police chief (Henriksen) has his hands full with mutilated bodies, and worse still, the savage little blighters can fly. When it emerges that Marachuk has a shady background that may be related to the winged mutations, O'Neil and Henriksen reunite to save the local community during its annual beach ceremony.Director Cameron's inauspicious debut is a gore-fest with plenty of bare flesh (check out the randy scuba divers in act one, or the topless pair who swindle the nerd) and some truly alarming special effects (half masticated corpses courtesy of Giannetto De Rossi). Henriksen is his usual reliable self (and became a staple in Cameron's movies), while O'Neil is an attractive and self assured leading lady. Soap opera (and for that matter, men's magazine) viewers might recognize the young face of the ill-fated Leslie Graves, who co-starred on "Capitol" shortly following this film.Cameron's film is overlong and conceptually infantile, not to mention clumsy in its detail (some of the "flying" fish appear to be doing so with the aid of a fishing rod, cables in view). Conspicuously absent is the wit and good taste of the original, while cheap slapstick and poor taste are now in abundance. Senses on overload with enough to whet the adolescent appetites of the target audience mesmerized by flying chainsaws gnawing off the kind of extremities normally reserved for Sylvia Kristel films of the era.