PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING

You've finally got a fix for "Hey you can beat this villain by just staying out of the water" and then they barely ever use it. Sure, it makes no sense that the piranha can fly, but seeing as they can, you may as well have used that ability to the max. But 99% of the victims are still water-bound. Whatever, it's a modicum of fun in that dated practical effects way.

Final rating:★★ - Had some things that appeal to me, but a poor finished product.

<em>'Piranha II: The Spawning'</em> is woeful. You'd expect more with James Cameron at the helm, but everyone has to start somewhere; he followed up with <em>'The Terminator'</em> and <em>'Aliens'</em> so he did alright! This, his feature directorial debut, is proper rubbish though.

It's seemingly less to do with Cameron anyway in fairness, it sounds like producer Ovidio G. Assonitis had his hands all over this; Miller Drake was the original director, who Assonitis evidently fired. I think that speaks for itself. Either way, it's low-quality and I hold no positives.

The editing is all over the place, there are moments where it cuts to characters for a relative few seconds for no apparent reason; notably with Chris & Allison and that random couple whose names didn't even register. Some of the character interactions, mainly early, are weird too.

How the film utilises the piranha is the big issue, though. Unlike the Joe Dante original, we see so much of the fish that it becomes ineffective; less is more and all that. And that's without mentioning the biggest howler produced: they made them fly. It plays as terribly as it sounds.

I don't have anything all that noteworthy to say about the cast, but to be honest this film's issues have very little to do with them. Tricia O'Neil is the standout if I had to pick one. Perhaps only an all-star cast would've saved this, but probably not given all the offscreen problems.

The mutated piranha threat switches from a river in Texas to Jamaica

Everyone knows this is the film where James Cameron debuted as director, albeit he got fired after only four days, not to mention a week’s worth of pre-production (searching for locations and so forth). Cameron believed Greco-Italian producer Ovidio Assonitis would hire American directors to get funding from studios for his projects and then find an excuse to fire them so he could direct himself. The claimed support for this is “Beyond the Door,” “Madhouse,” and this movie.

Disregarding the behind-the-scenes drama, is the film as bad as its reputation? Not at all. It’s a perfectly watchable creature feature in the tradition of the original 1978 film and the “Jaws” flicks, as well as Assonitis’ own “Tentacles.” No, it’s not great like Dante’s “Piranha” or the first two “Jaws” movies, but it’s an improvement over “Tentacles.” Those in the mood for an oceanic thriller like “The Deep,” “The Great Alligator” and “Zombie” should appreciate it.

Lance Henriksen stars as the harbor police chief and it’s interesting seeing him with a full head of hair at the age of 40yo during shooting. Meanwhile blonde Connie Lynn Hadden stands out in the female cast as Loretta, but her role’s unfortunately too small. Dark brunette Carole Davis as Jai is also worth a mention, not to mention petite Leslie Graves as teenager Allison and Tricia O'Neil as the main protagonist (who’s reminiscent of Adrienne Barbeau, albeit more attractive IMHO).

It runs 1h 35m and was shot Feb-Apr 1981 on the north side of Jamaica in Ocho Rios, with lots of scenes done at the resort hotel there; underwater sequences were filmed almost 300 miles to the west off of Grand Cayman. Additional studio work was done in Rome.

GRADE: B-

This is far more fantastical than its original. The fishes in this behave a lot more like the graboids in Tremors where they just seem to be stacking traits on top of each other as the movie needs them to. The idea of having winged piranha is terrifying enough but to have them be able to handle both fresh and salt water, most poisons and be able to breathe air so that they can ambush people long after they've been fished out of the water becomes a bit extreme and since you aren't privy to which rules are in play it's difficult to build tension. It becomes a sort of fish ex machina if that's a term we can use. The ending to the movie is climactic and well earned but it's not a fantastic movie overall.