Piranha II: The Spawning (1982)
Overview
A scuba diving instructor, her biochemist boyfriend, and her police chief ex-husband try to link a series of bizarre deaths to a mutant strain of piranha fish whose lair is a sunken freighter ship off a Caribbean island resort.
Cast
Tricia O'Neil
Anne Kimbrough
Steve Marachuk
Tyler Sherman
Lance Henriksen
Police Chief Steve Kimbrough
Ricky Paull Goldin
Chris Kimbrough
Leslie Graves
Allison Dumont
Carole Davis
Jai
Connie Lynn Hadden
Loretta
Ted Rusoff
Opening Victim (voice) (uncredited)
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Gimly
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._
r96sk
<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.
