Fliegende Killer - Piranha II

Incorrectly thought by many to be the picture that started James Cameron's directorial career, considering that much of the film was shot by the executive producer at helm with then-young artist fired within couple weeks into production, Piranha II: The Spawning is a B-movie schlock that's campy, ridiculous & terrible but it is surprisingly not the disaster that I went in expecting.

The sequel to Joe Dante's Piranha, the film is an obvious attempt to cash-in on the success of the original and doesn't even do the bare minimum to deliver the fun, campy fare it could have. Nevertheless, there are few technical elements that do manage to float in this sinking mess as evident in the gore effects on display, score that slowly finds its footing & occasional well-built suspense.

Cameron may have been on the crew for only couple weeks but the underwater sequences do carry his signature & fascination with shipwrecks. Characters are bland, dialogues are lame & flying piranhas are a hoot yet with lesser character interplay & more B-movie thrills, there was an opportunity here to make a silly yet enjoyable feature. All it needed to do was commit but it holds back instead.

Overall, Piranha II: The Spawning is not far from the eyesore that I was anticipating but the film has the so-bad-it's-good quality that makes the ride somewhat amusing. The practical effects also have an old-fashioned charm to them even if the shoddy script, dull characters & pathetic direction is present throughout its runtime. And of all the things it has in store, Lance Henriksen being part of the cast is a legit surprise.

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****

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.

...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.

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.