Piranha II

[chadzilla]

Cinematic urban legend has it that the producers took the film away from James Cameron (bad choice considering what his sophomore effort turned out to be, The Terminator) and reshot and deleted a whole mess of stuff.  Cameron then, reportedly, broke into the lab after hours to secretly edit the film and fix the tampering.  Why did he even bother?

James there is a name you should have known about...Alan Smithee.

The only stuff in this mess of a movie that Cameron said is actually his work is the underwater footage, and that is because the producers and their toadies did not know how to dive, and, of course, Cameron does!

But it does have Lance Henrikson, whoo-hoo!

[Steve Bentley]

Why was James Cameron fired from Piranha 2?  Cameron, given a 23 day shooting schedule and an extremely specific budget,
used up all of the time (and money) and only shot about half of the movie.  (This becomes a common factor in Camerons career.  That and plagiarism, too.)  When asked why the feature wasn't complete, Cameron supposedly said "I couldn't get the artistic shots I wanted".  The producers reaction?  "James, it's called show BUSINESS, not show ART."
Only the features made while married to Gale Anne Hurd (Terminator, Aliens) seem to have been well produced, though.  Cameron would drive The Abyss so over-budget and over-schedule, that the movie was almost scrapped by the production company, and in the end, the single most expensive sequence (the tidal wave) was left on the cutting-room floor.  By the way, the plagiarism charges?  Terminator now holds an inserted credit to Harlan Ellison whose work (particularly the short story SOLDIER, actually an episode of the original OUTER LIMITS) "inspired" the story.  F. Paul Wilson successfully proved Aliens ripped off the entire last third of his novel THE TOMB, but declined the credit in favor of taking Camerons paycheck. James Cameron did indeed work as a model-maker on Galaxy of Terror, as well as Battle Beyond the Stars, and is credited as having helped build the miniature of New York in John Carpenter's ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK.

[Davis]

All I have to say that this was the worst piece of horse crap I've ever seen in my entire life. I nearly executed myself for actually sitting through this horrible piece of filming.

[lostmissy]

I'm developing a theory about Corman movies i.e. "the earlier in the movie the girls clothes comes off, the worse the movie will be" . Let me see ,4 minutes, hmm another link in the chain of proof!!  

[Doc Hazzard]

To John.B ..Check out Tricia O'Neal in a bikini top and daisy dukes in THE GUMBALL RALLY(1976)a really funny road race comedy with Raul Julia.Nice bit in it of her wiggling and jiggling while she's washing a windsheild.

[spike]

I thought the movie was fun to watch just to see the stupidity.  I just like the fish killing now that I seen Carnosaur. I thought Piranah series is cool.

[da mojoman]

Not much to add...welllll, maybe a bit. You forgot they were also created with grunion DNA to allow them to breathe air.
The people looked like real people and not model beautiful... that they acted like idiots is another matter.
First story I heard about a game warden and a man fishing with dynamite was many years ago and was in the bayou country of Louisiana...on throwing the bomb to the officer he said, "You here to talk or to fish?"
Would a bell UH-1? helicopter, in autorotation, about 30 feet in altitude crumple like tinfoil on hitting the water and burst into flame? With no prior damage like bulletholes in the fuel tanks? Sounds fishy to me.
The special effects, particularly makeup are almost Tobe Hooper or Rick Baker quality, and this is one of the first movies where the wings on the critters flapped in an appropriate ratio to their flight speed.
If you are gonna get laid in a dinghy, take padding to lie on...lots of padding.
In the final moments the diver who has been holding her breath for a minute, at least, after exerting herself to dislodge the steel grating to get out of the pending blown up ship, can swim enough to grab an anchor on a boat moving about 8 knots, and survive the explosion of 30 or so sticks of dynamite underwater at about a quarter mile (being generous) not only floats stunned on the water for less than 30 seconds but can immediately start yelling and swim straight for the dive boat where hubby is waiting...no disorientation, no bleeding from the ears, no apparent broken bones, when even surfacing should have been impossible until her corpse started to bloat.
And it had a wicked collection of a variety of tatas.

[Martin Bak]

I watched this movie and Starship Troopers the same night which almost caused me to dehydrate because of the tears running down my cheeks - it's a beaut!! it's definately up there with other cheese heavy weights such as the cars that ate Paris and popcorn.

only complaint: it's freakin' dark i guess extra lights would have blown the budget

[pete]

For all the bad things that's been said about this film, one thing I have to say in it's defense: At least it acknowleges the first film. So many times a supposed "sequal" comes out (particularly if it's a horror movie sequal) that calls itself something-something part 2 and then not only does not include any of the characters from the origonal but makes no mention of any of the events from it's prdessessor. This one at least remembers it's roots. Beyond that, all I can say is you might enjoy this as a campy, so-bad-it's-good film, (and some may delight in thinking of this as an early project that both Lance Hendrickson and James Cameron must wish everyone would forget about) or you may simply loathe it. I had a fun time.

[Brady]

This movie is the most abominable , despicable piece of f**king s**t i have ever seen in my entire life. I'd rather shove a pineapple up my arse than watch this disgrace to humanity ever again.

[Griff]

This should have a skull rating. I've never seen the film but from watching the clip on this site, you'll see what I mean.

[kjw]

To me this isn't as bad as most people make it out to be.At least there is plenty of action throughout and plenty of killings.And to see a fish fly is pretty comical in my book.Not great but not the worst I've ever seen either.

[Max Brandt]

Piranah II, yes, I know this film is a bit old and so many, many comments have been made about how horrible it is but I have always wondered one thing, who was that amazingly sexy and alluring dark haired beauty in the white bikini that got it from the nasty fish half way through the film? Andrew Borntreger say she and her friend were ugly, what? They were pretty good looking! Especially the dark haired gal, she is very hot and I am STILL p**sed to this day she got "killed off" in that horribly bad movie. What a total babe and Cameron just heartlessly offs her and her cute pal! To hell with you, Mr. Cameron! But seriously, who was that foxy woman in the whit bikini and what ever became of her? Any one out there know her real name and is there any good pics of her around? She has one very BIG fan with me!

[Rob]

Ahhh anything to do with water and people getting eaten is an attention drawer to me, that's my fortay. I first saw this in the UK with another monster fim called Devouring Waves. Yeah it sucked compared to the original but it has some bright spots: the fish are utterly silly. On land they're flapping puppet props. In the sea they're sped up models going around in a circle? So why are they so friggin' scary? The viciousness of how the little guys attacked their victims, though campy, was kinda unsettling. The music store at times is very effective. One scene I get a kick out of which was edited from the original release is the nightwatchman "Aaron" patroling the shore one minute, and then the next scene he apparently wanted to to take a swim because he's staggering out of the water zombie-like and all chewed up. There is a very almost Fulci-like horror feeling when his body is dragged backwards through the shallows into the killer pack of killer flyin grunion piranhas

[Sora the B-Movie Alchemist]

Me and my mom got 'Piranha' off netflix. And as soon as told her "the fish can fly" she went on netflix and got it. You don't know how happy I was when I found out that the piranhas chirped in the sequel.

Sometimes I wonder how James Cameron sleeps at night. This is probably how the idea process went with Titanic...
Movie dude 1: We someone qualified for Titanic...
Movie dude 2: What about the dude who made Piranha 2?
Movie dude 1: YOU'RE A FRIGGIN GENIUS

And did anyone notice that the actors were HOLDING the fish to their throats?

Sora the B-Movie Alchemist's Ratings
Violence: ** 1/2
Goofiness: ****
Monster: *** Flying piranha, I mean c'mon
Actors: *
Overall: ***
Comments: More titties than you can shake a stick at!