Piranha II: The Spawning (1981) Saturn International/Horror RT: 94 minutes Rated R (violence and gore, full frontal nudity, sexual content, language) Director: James Cameron Screenplay: James Cameron and Charles H. Eglee (collectively as “H.A. Milton”) and Ovidio G. Assonitis Music: Stelvio Cipriani (as “Steve Powder”) Cinematography: Roberto D’Ettorre Piazzoli Release date: November 25, 1983 (Philadelphia, PA) Cast: Tricia O’Neil, Steve Marachuk, Lance Henriksen, Ricky Paull Goldin (as “Ricky G. Paull”), Ted Richert, Leslie Graves, Ancil Gloudon, Carole Davis, Connie Lynn Hadden, Captain Kidd Brewer Jr., Jan Eisner Mannon, Arnie Ross, Tracy Berg, Albert Sanders, Anne Pollack, Lee Krug, Sally Ricca, Dorothy Cunningham. Box Office: N/A
Rating: *
The MPAA gave Piranha II: The Spawning an R rating for the usual reasons (violence, gore, nudity, and sex), but perhaps it should have carried a PU rating to warn potential ticket buyers that they’re about to be exposed to a really terrible movie. I realize that the 1978 original is no cinematic masterpiece, but at least it kept the audience amused by keeping its tongue firmly planted in its cheek. I don’t know what the producers of this badly misconceived sequel were thinking. Okay, let me take that back- I do have an idea of what they were thinking when they shot this lame excuse for a horror movie… money!
It’s a low-budget Italian production, and one might think it would at least make a small profit from one-week engagements at drive-ins and grindhouse theaters around the U.S. However, I can’t find any box office records for this movie. I suspect it didn’t even make a nickel.
It’s a lousy movie! In fact, it has the distinction of being one of the few films I didn’t watch all the way through before returning it to the video store. That really says something considering I have a high tolerance for cinematic junk. I’ve sat through some real winners. I even watched Snuff twice, but I couldn’t make it through more than 40 minutes of Piranha II: The Spawning before shutting off the VCR in complete disgust.
It’s one thing to make a cheesy, low-budget B-movie like the first Piranha, but it’s another matter entirely to create a cheap piece of garbage that fails on almost every level. I have to give some credit to the writers for coming up with the idea of flying piranha. That could have been a really fun movie, especially in the hands of a producer like Roger Corman. Unfortunately, he had nothing to do with this film, so we’re left with what amounts to a visual presentation of how NOT to make a movie.
Set on a Caribbean island at the luxurious Hotel Elysium, one might mistake Piranha II: The Spawning for the pilot episode of a Love Boat-type series as we meet the staff and guests of the resort, watching them attempt to hook up with each other. A couple of single women try to land a rich husband and encounter a dentist. A flirtatious older woman makes passes at a younger, handsome lifeguard. There’s a young couple on their honeymoon. A hotel cook tries to hook up with a pair of female sea bandits after catching one of them stealing food from the kitchen. I kept waiting for Charo to pop up…. and out. (“Cuchi-cuchi!”)
However, that’s not the main story. The actual leads are Anne (O’Neil, The Gumball Rally) and Tyler (Marachuk, Eyes of Laura Mars). She’s the hotel diving instructor, and he’s one of her students. Naturally, he’s interested in more than just diving lessons. After one of her students is killed during a dive at the site of a sunken wreck, Anne is determined to find out what really happened. His bloody demise doesn’t match the pattern of any known marine life in the area. By the way, she’s also a marine biologist.
Steve (Lance Henriksen, Aliens), the local police chief, refuses to listen to her concerns about examining the body, but that could have something to do with the fact that they’re currently separated. Meanwhile, their teenage son Chris (Goldin, Sleepaway Camp) has left the island to work on a sailboat with a local captain (Captain Kidd Brewer Jr., The Abyss) and his attractive teenage daughter (Graves, Capitol).
Tyler continues to follow Anne around the island and even accompanies her when she breaks into the morgue to examine the body. They get out alive, but the same can’t be said of the unlucky attendant who gets chomp-chomped by a mutant piranha hiding inside the dead body. Nobody pays any attention to Anne’s repeated warnings about the danger lurking in the sea, and she ends up getting fired by the greedy and thick-headed hotel manager (Richert, The Final Countdown) only interested in the upcoming grunion run.
As I said, the danger in Piranha II: The Spawning comes from flying piranha which appear to be the product of government-funded genetic experimentation. (Are they really still doing that? Geez!) Apparently, a cylinder full of these fish was lost in the area, and… well, you know the rest. I’m sure you all want to know if there’s any connection to the first movie. The answer is yes. One of the characters briefly mentions the events of the 1978 film. That’s it.
One of the biggest surprises is that this movie was directed by future “King of the World” James Cameron. It’s hands down the worst film of his career. Based on this disaster, who would have guessed that Cameron would go on to become one of the most prominent filmmakers of the 20th century? The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), Titanic (1997), Avatar (2009)… do any of those ring a bell?
To be fair, there were a lot of problems on set including constant interference from the producers and a battle over editing. In the end, they fired Cameron after only five days, but still credited him as director for legal reasons so the blame can’t be placed entirely on his shoulders. A bulk of Piranha II: The Spawning is actually directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis, the producer of such non-classics as Beyond the Door (1974), Tentacles (1977), The Visitor (1979) and The Curse (1987). Supposedly, there’s a director’s cut of this movie and I’d be curious to see if it’s any better than the version I watched. Because this one? It’s a true stinker.
The acting, dialogue, cinematography, editing, sound, and special effects are all equally terrible. Piranha II: The Spawning is almost completely unwatchable. It makes Piranha 3DD (2012) look like a timeless classic by comparison. Now I understand why it took two years for this turkey to hit theaters. And even then, it barely played anywhere. Had it opened in a local theater, I probably would have seen it, but the closest location was 45 minutes away and it’s kind of hard to talk your dad into driving that far to watch an obvious piece of garbage. Instead, I ended up seeing the delightfully trashy A Night in Heaven (1983). But honestly? Even 15YO Movie Guy wouldn’t have liked Piranha II: The Spawning. It’s the cinematic equivalent of sea sickness.
