Piranha II: The Spawning (1982)
Directed by James Cameron
Chalk this up to the what the fuck did I just watch section! The original Piranha is an independent horror classic and usually gets overlooked for being a Jaws ripoff. The sequel however is mostly known for being James Cameron’s directorial debut. Did the genius director knock it out of the park off the bat? Yeah no, but let’s dive in.
Piranha II is about mutant flying fish that kill people. Ok thanks for reading, come back tomorrow for more horror! Ok I guess there’s really not much more to say about the plot, it is as basic as it gets. The fish look horrible, like beyond bad. I’ve seen off brand muppets that look more realistic. The acting is pretty wooden, but cmon it’s a movie about flying killer fish, what do you expect? Tom Hanks? The main woman is Tricia O’Neill and she is really easy on the eyes, I guess that is a plus.
How James Cameron got fired from this and went on to make The friggin Terminator is beyond me. Was he high the whole time or something? Was the production company mettling too much? Who knows, but this movie is pretty damn bad, especially compared to the Terminator, Terminator 2, Avatar, Titanic, and all the other Cameron classics haha. Cameron was basically broke after he left this production and had to couch surf until a fever dream brought him the idea of the Terminator. So I guess we can thank this movie for one of the greatest scifi movies of all time?
While Piranha is a great low budget horror flick, and the remake is a fun comedic horror, the sequel is pretty bad, like really bad. The acting is awful, the special effects are worse and the story is absurd. I’ll likely never watch this again and the 3.7 rating on IMDB is justified. I give this a D. It isn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen but man I can’t believe Cameron made this haha.
