Piranha II: The Spawning

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. This is just classic Italian-American horror sequel-making at its finest. We have a round table of directors, with James Cameron getting stuck with his name on the picture. This brings the film more attention in retrospect as Cameron has become huge. But the truth is that the "real" director, after Cameron was forced off, was really the producer. I don't care how cheesy the fish effects are. I thought this was classic 1980s horror and I loved it. The silliness, the cliché plot and obvious death scenes. And Lance Henriksen before he really took off? This is must-see.

Hard to believe it's Cameron, that's right. The directorial wizard who brought us such great films as "Terminator 2" produced this crap first time around. Well, not crap really. This film is okay. The piranhas looked OH! SO FAKE! And the storyline was average, which is BELOW AVERAGE for Cameron. But what kept this sinking ship afloat was Gabby. Gabby was the king of guy that would make you laugh on a rainy day. He's brave (standing up to Henriksen, for example), he's funny(without trying to be), and he's really, really wicked("I'm gonna kill 'em all, Anne!"). Gabby was a great addition to this barely average film. And if I ever watch it again. It would be just to see Gabby work his magic, in his very first film! However, unless you are a die hard Cameron fan, avoid this muddled mess! **out of****

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.

The film opens at night, off the coast of an island in Jamaica. A young couple are scuba diving in an old ship wreck, the Dwight Fitzgerald. They start to explore the wreck, all of a sudden they take their scuba gear and swim wear off and start to have sex, at this point I found myself asking how they intend to breathe., before I could think of a reasonable answer they are both attacked and eaten by a shoal of vicious genetically engineered flying piranhas! Wow, a pretty good start, we've already seen underwater sex, nudity, killer flying piranha that make a silly noise, and a couple of deaths and we're less than ten minutes into the film. Unfortunately the film can't maintain this pace or level of incident, as for the next thirty or so minutes after the opening credits, we are subjected to constant unnecessary character development that doesn't really develop the characters much at all. We are introduced to our main characters including, Anne Kimbrough (Tricia O'Neil) a scuba diving instructor and tour guide, her ex husband Steve Kimbrough (the always reliable Lance Henriksen) who appears to be the local law enforcement officer and their son Chris (Ricky G. Paull). We are also introduced to all the fish food. Basically the guests of a beach side resort. These scenes drag and get dull very quickly. At about the thirty minute mark Anne takes her scuba diving class to explore the ship wreck. One of the group wanders off on his own, Anne swims around looking for him, when she does find him he's been half eaten. After some detective work like studying the wounds and another dive to the ship wreck she discovers the flying piranhas, but is it already too late? Will she be able to convince the local authorities and the owners of the beach resort of the threat before everyone ends up as piranha fish food? This was the directorial debut of the soon to be famous James Cameron, even though I don't think he brags it too often. Apparently executive producer Ovidio G. Assonitis was unhappy with Cameron's work and added scenes and re-cut the film before release. I would love to know the truth behind these stories and to watch Cameron's original cut, considering the films he's made since it's a safe bet it would have been better than what eventually ended up on cinema/TV screens. Anyway, I quite liked it for what it is, it's professionally enough made. Some of the flying piranha effects look a little dated and silly, but everything considered I thought they looked OK-ish. The special make up effects work better with some nice mangled corpses, severed chewed up heads and various bites, I just wish there was more of them. The film fails to build up much excitement or tension until the final twenty minutes or so when Anne and Tyler Sherman (Steve Marachuk) a biochemist who helped create the piranhas, plant bombs in the wreck and are trapped by the returning piranha and must find a way out or either be eaten or blown up. A bit too little, too late. The version I watched must have been uncut as it contains all the scenes the 'alternate versions' section on the IMDb, there is some nudity there, and some reasonable gore. Apart from the painfully slow opening thirty or so minutes after the opening credits I quite liked it, in spite of it's faults. Worth a watch at least.

This really isn't too bad a film, and is certainly a worthy sequel to the original. 'Piranha' worked because it was tongue-in-cheek, making fun of the films it was parodying. 'Piranha II' tries to be more serious, but is so cheesy that it manages, by default, to be just as effective. This time round the Piranha have moved from the river and are in the sea, able to fly as a result of scientists crossing genes to make the ultimate killing machine. After the opening scene which is similar to the one in Jaws 2, (except here the two divers are lovers trying for some underwater coupling), the film introduces a variety of characters, most of which are surprisingly endearing in a 'B' movie kind of way; particularly two topless good-time girls who get provisions from a stuttering chef with the promise of a threesome. Lance Henriksen, who continued a lucrative association with Cameron, plays the police chief, who is a hybrid of Brody from 'Jaws' and Colonel Kilgore from 'Apocalypse Now'. He valiantly plays a straight role as all around him descends into chaotic fun. The flying piranha attack like vampire bats, going for the throats of their luckless victims; whilst they also have Alien-like trends, one bursting out of a dead body to attack a nurse. As can be gathered, I found this film great fun - most production values are of a reasonable standard, particularly the underwater photography. The piranha themselves are a disappointment, but they play second fiddle to the characters and storyline. People who slate the film need to watch the likes of 'Barracuda' or 'Evil in the Deep', both of which are fathoms below 'Piranha II'. Any film with dialogue like "Do you dive on your first date?" gets the thumbs up from me.

i love this movie

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gee

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how do I look¿