Piranha II: The Spawning (1981)

Sitting down to watch this movie in 2011, I was quite surprised to see James Cameron was involved in this movie, and I was also surprised to find Lance Henriksen on the cast list.

I have seen the first part of these movies and it wasn't too bad. Then this movie came along, and it all fell apart. The piranha themselves, weren't' too badly made, considering this is back from 1981. But the fact that they suddenly had wings and were flying about? Come on, seriously? That was just too much, and it totally made the movie turn from horror to comedy in a bad, bad way.

The movie also suffered from horrendous acting and really dull dialogue. The only one worth watching in the movie, in my opinion, was Lance Henriksen. There were just too many performances where you didn't buy into the performance for a second.

"Piranha 2: The Spawning" is a terrible sequel and is not really worth the time, unless you are desperately in need of finding something to watch and can't find anything else. I managed to sit through the entire movie, and I can honestly say that I will never pop this back into the DVD player again.

And also, I was sitting with a gnawing sensation that this entire movie was just a spin off of the "Jaws" movies, only with the lead "bad fish" changed from a shark to large, flying piranha. It took place on an island. There was a police officer (Lance Henriksen). Gee, didn't we see this in "Jaws" already?

All in all, "Piranha 2" is boring and uneventful. I wish it would just grow wings like the fish did and then fly away.

Fmovies: ...the flying piranha special effect (is it a special effect?!), it has to be one of the worst moments in cinema history!.

Pros: it has hot girls in bikinis. That's it. Cons: a dumb plot, horrible special effects -the flying piranhas say it all-, a bad score, a bad cinematography, bad acting. It's even worse that the original "Piranha": This one didn't even try to be a good horror movie. I wonder what's James Cameron opinion about this movie, I'm sure he's not proud of it. Avoid this one, watch JAWS instead.

This follow-up pretty much matches the first film for pacing and thrills, which isn't saying much. Seeing how the fishies are introduced in the opening scene (to devour a pair of underwater lovemakers!) but then disappear for 20 minutes to set up the bland characters. Despite what other IMDBers have said, I thought the cast looked fine. O'Neill is cute, the two cruel babes on the boat were NICE, and the busty, though never glimpsed, sea captain's daughter was good. She does the "dirty deed" with some dude in a waterfall, but the scene is so dark that you cant see squat. And there's actually a survivor so to speak of all these performers: veteran actor Henricksen, who went on to bigger and better, and is till working these days. As for the action, I liked the idea of the flying munchers. Though laughable, it gave them an extra dynamic to exploit on the victims. But even with that inventive idea, the effect of them taking flight is extremely cheap looking. Whenever they chew someone, its always done in close up, as if some stagehand was trying to stay out of the shot as he held the fish against the actors face/neck. I do have to give credit for the scene involving the nurse. If you don't get a jolt when that little sucker pops out of the dead body, I'd be surprised. As for superstar director Cameron, his first offering is what you'd expect out of a low budget horror film; cheaply made, dark and badly photographed nonsense. And that early "Titanic" influence is evident in a number of scenes that take place in the hulls of a sunken ship. But he manages to make you jump here and there, and I enjoyed the opening credits, that featured some good, creepy violin music and creatively done wavy, water-like effects as the names came on screen. As most have said, this may go into a lot of peoples "so bad, its funny" file, but it entertained me as much as the first film did, which was very little.

Piranha II: The Spawning fmovies. The fish swimming underwater looked better than the original. Also gorier. Just as cheesy and with as much nudity as the first movie. It isn't as good as the first but still kinda fun. Yes, James Cameron made a film about killer flying fish. Could you imagine how good he'd make a b-movie if he made it now?

Cameron defends his first film opus as being, "without a doubt, the finest flying piranha movie ever made." I must agree with The King of the World on that one.

This movie just goes to show that none of us should take early knocks in our careers too hard. From here to Titanic in 17 years is pretty good.

sure it's not the best movie ever made,,but they don't do this kind of movies any more. it has a bit of that early 80's charm over it. And Lance Henriksen is never bad in a movie. sure the script blows but what a hell it's entertaining as hell. And the effects looks very cheesy at some times. mostly on the flying piranha effects they looks darn ugly. it had been better if the fishes stayed in the sea:-) those effects worked better. the music sounded like some Italian giallo film. maybe the reason for that was that the producer was Italian. iv'e got the DVD version of the film and it looks pretty good in widescreen. some scenes i wished they would have cut out, like some of the more comic characters,in a movie like this that aims for a serious story don't need unrealistic comic reliefs. like the scene when they chant *we want fish* what did the script makers think. if this was a comedy it would have been a blast,,but not when it's gonna be a horror movie. but if you ignore all the flaws in this movie and just see it for what is it's pretty OK. a forgotten little horror flick from the early 80's