There’s something fishy (sorry for that, couldn't help myself) with Piranha 2: The Spawning and I can’t point out exactly what it is. Being an infamous troubled production ending with director James Cameron being fired and - according to some sources - breaking into the editing facility to re-cut the movie without producer Assonitis knowledge, but caught and the movie restored to what Assonitis wanted. But there’s also people who say that Cameron left the movie exactly like he wanted to. Who should we believe? I don’t know.
Lance Henriksen is a tough local cop who’s constantly argue with his ex-wife. Their teenage son have discovered girls and gets interested in a tourist girl. At the same time mysterious deaths connected to a diving school gets Lance attention, mostly because his ex-wife owns the school. Melodrama deluxe. Once a year it’s a tradition to witness the spawning, some fish-related stuff and all the guests at the luxury hotel will participate… but what they don’t know is that the water...and air...is packed with flesh-hungry flying piranhas!
Piranha 2: The Spawning (also with the title Flying Killers) have very little to do with the original movie by Joe Dante, a masterpiece of tongue-in-cheek 70’s cinema from the stable of Corman, instead the sequel comes off like the rip-off of Jaws the first movie was blamed to be (when it wasn’t, just a cash-in with a spoof-twist) and is deadly serious. Almost, because a couple of the guests and crew at the hotel is the typical comic reliefs.
Lance Henriksen is excellent, believe it or not - considering the source material - and is really cool and hard as the sheriff (wearing a costume he bought from a waiter and an upside-down freebie pin to fake a police badge). There’s really some electricity between him and Tricia O'Neil, and the added drama with his teenage son makes it more interesting. Storywise it’s a bit dry, with the occasional fish attack, but it really never takes off. The awaited finale when the fish attach the moronic hotel guests on the beach is good, but too short.
How about the gore then? The fine make-up effects by Gino De Rossi is acceptable and the flying is fish is not THAT corny, just a little bit. It’s bloody, but not overly graphic. Plus one point for a nice miniature helicopter explosion and some of the weirdest sexual tension I’ve seen in a movie of this kind. Because there’s a very subtle, but yet present, incestous vibe between the mother and son in the story, and the rest of the film have a very odd, hardly noticeable, sexual atmosphere to it.
Either people were fucking like rabbits behind the camera or Cameron could have been the sleaze master if he didn’t choose the super-mainstream path. We have Piranha 2 to thank for the existence of Terminator by the way, something he dreamed up during a feverish stay in Rome for the release of his first fishterpiece.
No, Piranha 2: The Spawning isn’t the super-bad movie some people claims it is. It’s just a pretty standard killer-animal movie with an absurd premise and a really cool hero. That’s something I can live with.
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