Piranha II: The Spawning (1982) review

11. Piranha II: The Spawning (1982)

Directed by: James Cameron

Produced by: Chako van Leuwen, Jeff Schechtman

Screenplay by: H.A. Milton

Starring: Tricia O’Neil, Steve Marachuk, Lance Henriksen, Ted Richert, Ricky G. Paull, Leslie Graves

Before you ask, yes, this was directed by James Cameron…technically; it’s a long story. The original “Piranha” is nothing special; it’s a standard B-movie about killer fish that came out not long after “Jaws,” only really becoming fun in the third act. But it was a decent box office hit, so a sequel came out four years later called “Piranha II: The Spawning.” Executive producer Roger Corman had no interest in it, and what resulted was a highly dysfunctional production that saw his replacement Ovidio G. Assonitis fire original director Miller Drake just before filming began and hire Cameron, a special effects director on “Piranha,” then go through a shooting process with an Italian crew that didn’t speak English, plus a power struggle between Assonitis and Cameron that supposedly kept the latter entirely out of post-production. Much like “The Terror” or some of these other stinkers, the tale of the making of the movie is far more interesting than the movie itself; despite the potential of a story with absurdities like flying piranhas, this is only sporadically amusing or engaging.

Being a sequel in name only and having nothing to do with the first movie, it takes place at a luxury coastal resort called Hotel Elysium, where a nearby shipwreck has become the scene of recent fatal marine animal attacks. One recent victim is a student of club diving instructor Anne (Tricia O’Neil), a student of marine biology; her estranged police officer husband Steve (Lance Henriksen) warns her to stay out of it, but aided by a pesky tourist named Tyler (Steve Marachuk), she sneaks into the morgue and takes pictures of the corpse, uncovering evidence that the attacks are from piranhas. Her idiot manager Raoul (Ted Richert) doesn’t believe her, as she eventually finds out from Tyler that he’s a biochemist and member of a team that genetically modified the piranhas, making them capable of flight to weaponize them. With help from their mutual friend Gabby (Ancil Gloudon), Anne and Steve team up with Tyler to try and kill the piranhas before they turn the resort into all-you-can-eat fish food.

Let’s get out of the way what I like about the movie; Tricia O’Neil and Lance Henriksen are really trying their best to make this all seem legitimate. There’s a lot of passion and conviction in these performances; you can see how Cameron sort of cut his teeth in creating strong female protagonists, with Anne not afraid to dig deep or call people out. Henriksen, of course, would become friends with Cameron, later appearing in “The Terminator” and “Aliens.” The diving scenes are also shot well; one personal gripe I have with underwater scenes is how slow and dark they are, but these have impressive technique and energy. With that said, whose idea was it to shoot an opening with a couple having sex in the shipwreck? Is there anything practical about that?

Anyway, the rest of the movie is awkward and even annoying at times; any time the story cuts to the guests, the pacing just grinds to a halt because nobody’s likeable. There’s this woman Beverly (Tracy Berg) who wants to get with a doctor named Leo (Albert Sanders) who’s actually a dentist, a couple named Ralph (Phil Colby) and Myrna (Hildy Maganasun) who love taking pictures, the libidinous Mrs. Wilson (Anne Pollack), and many more weird, poorly-acted caricatures. Even Tyler is just kind of irritating, and the fact that he ends up having a role in the piranhas’ presence doesn’t amount to much. Oh, and I forgot to mention Anne and Steve have a teenage son Chris (Ricky G. Paull) who’s off working on a boat with Captain Dumont (Ward White) and his daughter Allison (Leslie Graves); in the overall story, he’s pretty irrelevant. As for the fish, they’re still just cheap and silly-looking; apparently, production was such a mess that Cameron had to make rubber piranha models himself. Having them fly makes for a funny variable, but there’s not much carnage or camp appeal in their visual presence; you might as well have made them bats. Also, they still have that horrible warbling sound effect.

Nowhere is the lack of mayhem more disappointing than in the third act, when the resort goes ahead with a nighttime fish-catching party. This seems promising, like the climax is going to be this crazy bloodbath with the vacationers; but it’s over so quickly, and the real finale is just a dive down into the shipwreck accompanied by lame music. I remember how over-the-top the ending of the first movie was, with beach-goers just being ravaged and left a mess; here there’s a few mutilated faces, but the momentum is oddly flat. So once again, we’re left with a film that has what it takes to be enjoyably bad, but there isn’t much to laugh at. If anything, “Piranha II: The Spawning” is just a curiosity piece if you want to know about Cameron getting his start under unfortunate circumstances. Apparently, he came up with the premise of “The Terminator” from a fever dream he experienced around this film’s release, so at least something great came out of it. There was a 1995 made-for-TV remake of “Piranha,” and then a 2010 remake made in 3D that fully embraced the campiness of the idea. There’s not much else to say; sometimes a movie is just bad without ever being bad enough.

My rating: 4/10