Piranha II: The Spawning
Piranha II: The Spawning
R | 05 November 1982 (USA)
Piranha II: The Spawning Trailers

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.

Reviews
GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.
Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;
Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
krycek19 I thought the first movie was pretty bad, but at least it ripped off Jaws, shamelessly and in a fun way and it had action and a general fast pace.But the sequel, being a James Cameron movie, I expected it to be better than the original. When it fact it's worse. Much much worse.First of all the cheap look of this movie, makes The Terminator's low budget seem like an expensive movie. And the movie cost less than 145.000 dollars to make. But still, shooting on Jamaica, they could have taken advantage of the scenery and given us some nice land and sea shots. This movie has none of that. The weather is even pretty bad during the first part of the movie.Second of all, the actors are all hideously ugly. And the boy and his mom seem to have an incestuous disturbing relationship.The acting is embarrassing at best. Except from Lance Henriksen who is below average. But not much more than that Trisha O' Neil gives the best performance of the entire cast. She reminds me a little of Ripley in Aliens in looks and acting.Steve Marachuk is doing a decent job.But the feel of the movie is like watching some nasty 70'ies porn movie.And for James Cameron being the master of creature movies during the 80'ies: The Terminator and Aliens, the flying piranhas are embarrassingly badly done.Lots of gore. But almost no action what so ever. In the third act when all of the hotel guests are attacked by the flying piranhas, it would have been a great chance for some action, but even here the movie disappoints. That scene is over in a couple of minutes and is as badly done as every other scene with the piranhas. And don't even get me started on the toy-helicopter being blown up or the fake explosion of the underwater-wreck which is also a model combined with shaky camera and sound effects to create the illusion of the explosion.As for the story-part, I didn't even realized until the very end that the boy was Lance Henriksens son. And that's bad writing. Also not something I would expect from James Cameron.I' m amazed but also glad that he was allowed to direct The Terminator after directing this crap. Also amazing he could get a budget of 6 million dollars for The Terminator as he had not proved himself even remotely with Pirahnas 2.Avoid this crap at all cost.
atinder If not good as the original but I do think better then remake sequel piranha DO When j first saw this sequel , I did like it at all compared to the first movie However over years this movie and grown on me a litte There are that I really enjoy and liked the bloody parts of the movie and didn't mind the flying fish.It dose take long for the movie getting going but the killing starts and I loved the part on beach Let's eat raw fish , that was great scene , silly but really fun to watch I know it was intended to be funny but it was still great fun to watch The acting was decent and fish effects ts were okay for the time5 out of 10
moogyboy "Piranha 2: The Spawning" looks exactly like what it is: two different movies made by two different people, using the same story, actors, and crew. Unfortunately, the less talented of the two also happened to be the producer, and he got his way. The result is an occasionally interesting, intermittently gripping, and mostly ridiculous pot of glop.I'm just making assumptions here, but I'm going to guess that you can see James Cameron's involvement in the straight, dramatic portions of the movie, including the murky but eerily pretty underwater sequences. Definitely the casting of a strong, resourceful, reasonably complex woman in the lead is a Cameron trademark. Producer Ovidio d'Assontis, I reckon, is responsible for most of the more slapstick, broad, typically B-movie material, of which there is a lamentable mountain. The movie's mixture of horror and comedy does not work *at all*. It's not even good comedy--stupid one-liners coming out of the mouths of third-rate Central Casting rejects and would-be Penthouse models. Next minute, it's Tricia O'Neil, Steve Marachuk, and Lance Henriksen playing it dead serious. Like downshifting to second gear from fifth at 80 mph.O'Neil is a quite good actress and gorgeous in a world-weary, edge-of-fortysomething way to boot, and Lance as the gaunt, stressed-out police chief/heroine's husband is a true professional as always, but Steve's wisecracking scientist/playboy gets really annoying really fast...and he's supposed to be the co-hero. The rest of the cast is just downhill (or is that rapidly sinking?) from there, mostly a tiresome assortment of cardboard goofballs, although Gabby the dynamite fisherman is a likable representative of movie-Caribbeana and probably the most interesting character of the lot. The romance between the two teens is interesting when you consider that Leslie Graves was actually close to ten years older than her 15-year-old paramour, Ricky Paull.I almost forgot about the fish, the reason all these people were assembled in the first place.Do you blame me, though? You don't really see them much, to be honest, as much as you hear them, making that sort of wooga-wooga-wooga warbling noise as they swim in for the krill...er, kill. And when you do seen them, you don't for very long because your eyes get all scrunched up from you laughing. They really are ridiculous looking things, or at least the special effects shots in which they star are so badly done that you can't take them seriously. Granted, it's a cheap movie and I have seen worse ("Up From The Depths", anyone?), but I would think that if a visionary like James Cameron had had his way he would have approached the task a little differently. In fact, from what I read he had been originally hired as the Effects Supervisor when d'Assontis snatched him to replace the original director. If only he'd been left in his original post...but then the good parts of the movie wouldn't have happened at all, probably.What's the final verdict, then? It's an interesting, modest footnote to the early career of one of our towering cinematic giants, a typical Italian-flavored horror B-movie of the period. Largely dumb, but not a complete waste. Of definite interest to underwater fans.
MovieCritic33-6 I seldomly bash films, and usually I am able to find enjoyment in any film I watch. But this film was plain and simple garbage! There are no other words to describe it. This poor quality film and ridiculous concept which is so far out there its ludicrous. Genetically altered fish that not only have the ability to fly, but to breathe out of water. They're also pretty smart with good vision too, because they know where the people are at and almost never miss their target. To say a sequel to Joe Dante's 1978 cult classic film 'Piranha' would have potential, is probably wrong to say. The first film was a classic, with humour and unnerving moments which actually make you ask the question "What lies under the water?" Dante was able to create fear of the unknown in his film, and although many if not most films bend the branches of reality, Cameron's Piranha II: The Spawning completely mangles and breaks those branches which attempts to form any type of realism. A personal opinion is only a personal opinion, and if you still decide to waste your money on this film that is your choice. Maybe you'll find some enjoyment in this film that I could not, and if so kudos to you because you have a greater tolerance for films then I do. 0 Stars Out of ****