Piranha II: The Spawning (1981)

Plot Outline: Having made their way into the sea, the killer fish are back. Only they now have been mutated into flying killer fish and proceed to terrorise a beach resort

The Review: Making a sequel to a semi-spoof flick isn't a great idea, especially when this is more or less played straight (well as straight as a film about piranhas that can fly can actually be). I don't honestly know where to start with this crap. Let's look at the fish of the title. The flying fish are like vampires. They go straight for the throat. Then once the victim is dead, they move onto the next one. I thought piranha were supposed to devour flesh until there was only bone left, not kill like a slasher would. Such is the ridiculousness of this film that whenever someone is being attacked, you can see that the actors are holding the fish to their throats and allowing themselves to be eaten, whilst pathetically attempting to writhe around in pain and trying not to hit themselves with the fish too much. The camera tries to do close ups so that you don't see what is happening but we know full well how ridiculous it looks. Plus the majority of the people killed are meaningless characters who have about 10 lines of dialogue. The beach party attack scene where the flying fish attack the guests is more like The Birds than Jaws! The gore is plentiful and is the only redeeming factor to an otherwise abomination of a film. And Lance Henriksen, poor guy. He's gone from this to Aliens and then to The Mangler 2: Graduation Day. What a varied career he's having but I guess he needs to eat like everyone else. He must have needed an early pay cheque here too. Although judging from the lack of budget, the pay wouldn't have been too good.

Final Verdict: This is about as low budget as you can get. Awful acting, bad special effects and the film itself looks poorly lit and filmed. I can't see how Cameron went on to direct The Terminator directly after this! He should have been shot.

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