Piranha Part Two: The Spawning [Piranha II: The Spawning] ** (1981, Tricia O’Neil, Steve Marachuk, Lance Henriksen) – Classic Movie Review 6951

Jeff Schechtman, the co-producer of Piranha (1978), went on to produce a troubled sequel, Piranha Part Two: The Spawning [Piranha II: The Spawning], in 1981, directed by James Cameron no less. It stars Tricia O’Neil as Anne Kimbrough, Steve Marachuk as Tyler Sherman, and Lance Henriksen as Police Chief Steve Kimbrough.

This time the idea about huge, flying killer piranhas attacking a Caribbean island resort is so absurd that it is hard to make it go, but Cameron has a good try, despite the minuscule budget of $145,786. The mutant strain of piranha fish have wings and can fly, and live in a sunken freighter ship near the resort. It is up to Hotel Elysium scuba diving instructor Tricia, her police chief estranged husband Steve and her biochemist tourist friend Tyler to try to save the day.

Piranha Part Two: The Spawning is the 1981 feature film début of James Cameron, director of Aliens, The Terminator, Avatar and Titanic.

Also in the cast are Ricky G Paull [Ricky Paull Goldin], Ted Richert, Leslie Graves, Annie Ross, Carole Davis and Anne Pollack.

Piranha Part Two: The Spawning [Piranha II: The Spawning] is directed by James Cameron, runs 84 minutes or 95 minutes (Extended Version), is a production of Brouwersgracht Investments, Chako Film Company and Saturn, is released by Columbia, is written by Ovidio G Assonitis, James Cameron and Charles H Eglee (all credited as H A Milton), is shot by Roberto D’Ettore Piazzoli, is produced by Ovidio G Assonitis (executive producer), Chako van Leuwen [Hisako Tsukuba] and Jeff Schechtman, and is scored by Steve Powder [Stelvio Cipriani].

It is also known as Piranha II: Flying Killers (when first released in the UK), Piranha II: The Spawning and Fliegende Killer – Piranha II or just The Spawning.

Original director Miller Drake was removed by executive producer Ovidio G Assonitis and he replaced him with James Cameron, who was originally hired as the special effects director.

The crew was mostly Italian, none of whom spoke English but some had experience on horror and fantasy movies so they could largely fulfill Cameron’s wishes. Allegedly, Cameron and Assonitis did not see eye to eye, and Cameron was not allowed to see his footage or be involved in editing. Allegedly, he broke into the editing room in Rome and cut his own version while the producers were at Cannes, but was caught, and Assonitis re-cut it again.

Finally, Cameron made a deal with a distributor to re-score and re-cut it, so his alternative original eventually came out on home video in some regions, which made a profit for the distributor.

Underwater scenes were filmed off Grand Cayman, and the Mallard Beach Hyatt (now the Sunset Jamaica Grande) in Ocho Rios stands in for the Club Elysium. Interiors were filmed on a sound stage in Rome.

Cameron prefers to regard The Terminator (1984) as his first feature-length film but he has named Piranha II ‘the best flying piranha film ever made’.

Piranha 3D followed in 2010, by Alexandre Aja, who also made Crawl (2019).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6951

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