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.
After the success of “Piranha” it was no surprise we got a sequel.
I was all for a sequel to “Piranha”, it was a highly enjoyable film and I was hoping for more of the same entertainment. But this sequel took a real swerve, and I mean a huge swerve. Ladies and Gentleman I introduce to you, flying piranhas….
The concept of the flying piranhas was apparently an idea of a Warner Bros. executive, this is just another piece of evidence added to an already long list of why executives should not interfere and leave the ideas to the professionals.
Believe it or not that name you see on the poster, James Cameron, is the exact one you’re thinking of, it is a bit of a strange story though. Most of the work was actually performed by Ovidio G. Assonitis, the film’s producer. Assonitis was dissatisfied with Cameron’s progress after the first week and took over. Apparently Cameron did do the shooting for this movie, but was not allowed to see his footage and was not involved in editing. He broke into the editing room and cut his own version, but was caught and Assonitis re-cut it again.
The film itself is just plain awful, it’s not even a so bad it’s funny, it’s just bad. I found it extremely boring and found it hard to finish watching it, not even Lance Henriksen could save this film and that’s saying something. I just can’t fathom how this managed to be made.
“Piranha Part Two – The Spawning” is abysmal, I recommend you look elsewhere for your fix of killer fish.
Miscellaneous facts about the film:
In an interview, James Cameron said this movie gets better halfway through when seen at the drive-in with a six pack of beer.
James Cameron’s directorial debut, though due to reasons cited above, he personally does not consider it as such.
James Cameron’s name remained on the picture despite being fired as the film was contractually obliged to have an American name cited as director.
One of only two James Cameron films not to be scored by James Horner or Brad Fiedel. Stelvio Cipriani (as Steve Powder) did the score for this film.
It was during the Rome release of this movie in which James Cameron grew ill and had a dream about a metallic torso dragging itself from an explosion while holding kitchen knives, which gave Cameron the idea for The Terminator (1984).
In an interview, James Cameron said, “I believe ‘The Spawning’ was the finest flying piranha movie ever made.”
The piranhas in this sequel developed an additional skill which they did not have in Piranha (1978). They could fly.
James Cameron reused the flying piranha effects in Aliens (1986) for the face-huggers.
The original director was Miller Drake, Roger Corman’s head of post-production. He was swiftly removed by producer Ovidio G. Assonitis.
While filming in Rome, Grand Cayman and Jamaica, James Cameron had to struggle with a crew made up of Italians who didn’t speak English.
One of a cycle of 1980s and mid-late 1970s movies that got made after the box-office success of Jaws (1975). The films include that movie’s three sequels, Jaws 2 (1978), Jaws 3-D (1983), and Jaws: The Revenge (1987), as well as Orca (1977), Piranha (1978), Tentacles (1977), Killer Fish (1979), Barracuda (1978), Tintorera: Killer Shark (1977), Blood Beach (1980), Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1981), The Last Shark (1981), Up from the Depths (1979), Humanoids from the Deep (1980), Screamers (1979), Devil Fish (1984) and Mako: The Jaws of Death (1976).
As of 2015, this is the only film James Cameron has directed that does not have a title starting with the letter T or A.
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