Time: 94 Minutes
Cast:
Tricia O’Neil as Anne Kimbrough
Lance Henriksen as Steve Kimbrough
Steve Marachuk as Tyler Sherman
Ted Richert as Raoul
Ricky G. Paull as Chris Kimbrough
Leslie Graves as Allison Dumont
Director: James Cameron

When a number of people are killed off the coast of a Caribbean island, Anne, a diving instructor, investigates and finds out that a shoal of mutant piranha is behind the attacks.

I only watch the original Piranha movie directed by Joe Dante because James Cameron directed the sequel. Some people enjoyed the first movie for how over the top and campy it was. I was mixed on it, and found it mostly dull except for the entertaining third act. Piranha II is often called by far Cameron’s worst movie, and it was no surprise that that turned out to be the case. But the second movie is at least an improvement over the first, and I had a more enjoyable time with it.

Plotwise, it doesn’t have much to do with the first movie outside of some brief references, but its in the same vein as the original, with the movie being about piranhas attacking people again. To me, Piranha II embraced the silliness a little more, at least more consistently. It also takes the original concept a step further by having the piranhas flying in the air this time, thus leading to plenty of absurdity, both in plot and the scenes of ‘horror’. The movie definitely doesn’t make sense, the plot is sketchy and dumb, as is the dialogue. Still, there are more consistent B movie thrills with enjoyably silly moments, and works as a campy creature feature. There is a short runtime at 84 minutes, which was a pretty good length for this sort of movie.

Most of the acting is bad with bland and boring characters. However there would be one saving grave in Lance Henriksen in one of the main roles. He is really good and enjoyable, and he makes the movie so much better.

Piranha II doesn’t feel like a James Cameron movie at all, it’s said that he was screwed over by producers during filming, and that certainly comes across. That said, it’s a decent enough debut movie. The highlight are the piranha attack scenes, they are very unconvincing with bad special effects and are hilarious. On a technical level, the best parts are the underwater scenes which are filmed really well, and of course it wouldn’t be the first time that Cameron would make movies with water playing a notable part.

Piranha II: The Spawning is by far James Cameron’s worst movie but is still a little better than the first movie, with it leaning further into B-movie silliness, and having a committed Lance Henriksen performance. I don’t think it’s worth watching unless you want to complete Cameron’s filmography though.