Piranha II: The Spawning
Encyclopedia
Piranha II: The Spawning, also known as Piranha II: Flying Killers, is a 1981 horror film, the sequel to the 1978 low-budget film Piranha, and the feature film directorial debut of James Cameron
.
The next day, a group of tourists, including Tyler Sherman, are taking the diving courses provided by Anne Kimbrough, an employee of the Hotel Elysium. One of her divers swims into the wreck, which she has strictly forbidden to her divers. Leaving Tyler to take over and lead the others to the surface, she discovers almost immediately that her 'missing' student has swam into the wreck and been killed there when his badly chewed up body is found.
Annie's estranged husband, Steve, a police officer, refuses to listen to Anne about her wanting to have a look at the body, because she needs to know what happened. The death does not seem to match the attack pattern by any of the marine life in this area, which she knows better than anyone. For her not to know what killed a diver is a dangerous sign. Steve intercepts Aaron, a dynamite fisherman, and his son, and threatens to confiscate their boat, but as Aaron explains, Steve, Anne, and he, are old friends.
Meanwhile, as the guests begin to flirt with each other, a pair of women arrive on a large boat. By their own admission, they are sea bandits. One sneaks into the kitchen to steal food, but is intercepted by Mel, a cook. She flirts with him, and he offers instead to make her a wonderful dinner. But as he goes to their boat with the meal, they take the meal and then undock, letting the boat drift. They try to convince him to jump, and he tries, and fails, so they mock him and sail off. They sail too far out, and are attacked by the piranha, who have developed the power to fly.
Worried about what's going on, Anne finds that she is being frequently bothered by Tyler Sherman, so she takes him with her to the morgue to get a look at the body. It is revealed there that she became a marine biologist before she married Steve, and so she begins taking pictures. There, she finds that the bodies have been eaten in many parts. A nurse comes in, kicks them out, and ends up quickly dead, for a piranha was hiding in the body and escaped it. Armed with the power to fly, it kills the nurse and escapes out a window.
In her hurry, Anne left her credit card behind at the scene. Anne and Tyler have a one night stand, but in the morning, while he sleeps, she begins to study the pictures, and is horrified by what she discovers. Steve arrives, throwing the card at her, angry first that she went to the morgue in defiance of him, and secondly that she has man in her bed. She tries to warn him of what she's discovered, but he ignores her and thinks she's a murderess.
Anne tries to tell the managers that she's cancelling the dives because it isn't safe. He at first pretends to be concerned, but swiftly fires her, thinking she is crazy. Attempting to capture one for further study, or at the very least take some pictures so she can prove what she's trying to tell Steve and the manager, she is intercepted by Tyler, who swiftly informs her that he is a biochemist and member of a team which has developed the ultimate weapon: a specimen of genetically modified piranha, with some other fish's genes intermixed, capable of flying. Earlier, and unfortunately, the team mistakenly deposited (or lost) a cylinder full of these fish in the water where the dead couple were found.
Gabby provides the proof Anne needs to Steve, calling him and showing him, not merely some flying piranha he's recently caught, and never seen before, but also that they're a serious danger, because they're turning on each other. This is a sign that they're running out of food and will soon attack whatever they come near, including humans. At a meeting, Anne tries her best to reason with the manager, to no avail. Steve surprises her, standing up for her and proving her case for her by throwing the body of a dead piranha onto the table. Steve tells her that she can't trust Tyler, because the army says he's crazy. She argued that Tyler's just been using her to get the message of the piranha out for him, to protect both himself and the residents of the hotel.
Later on, a piranha attacks Gabby's son and kills him, leaving a bereft Gabby to vow revenge by killing the fish in the wreck they hide in. Anne tries to dissuade him, but it's too late. Having ignored Anne's advice, the manager, Raoul, hosts a nighttime fish party to capture grunion, who come up to the beach to spawn at this time, making them easy prey for humans to capture and kill. Unfortunately for the residents, the piranha are also partially grunion and share the same instinct. During the fishing party promoted by the resort, the piranhas fly out of the water and attack the guests on the beach and at the hotel's courtyard pool. Anne leads those who survive into hotel, where they shut the doors and windows. Gabby tries to attack the flying piranha, but they overwhelm and kill him.
In the morning, the flying piranha withdraw back into the ocean, for Anne had discovered that they are not fond of daylight. Tyler and Anne decide to undertake Aaron's plan, and blow up the ship to destroy the predators. Meanwhile, the situation gets even tenser, for not only can the piranha fly, but Anne and Steve's son has been hired, against their wishes, by a local ship 'Captain' and his lovely daughter. They sail away and strand themselves on an island, leaving them vulnerable to piranha attacks that never actually happen. Getting lost at sea, they try to set sail again, heading straight toward the wreck.
When Annie's son and the Captain's daughter are stranded in a raft above the shipwreck, Annie and Tyler arrive in a motorboat and don scuba gear to dive down to the wreck to plant the timer charges that Gabby left behind. With only 10 minutes to get out of the wreck before the bomb explodes, Annie and Tyler are trapped in one of the sunken ships rooms by the murderous piranha who all return to the wreck. On the surface, Steve, piloting a police helicopter, ditches the chopper and swims to Annie and Tyler's motorboat where his son and his girlfriend are. With minutes left to spare before the bomb explodes, Steve powers up the boat and takes off. Down in the wreck, Tyler sacrifices himself to allow Annie to escape out of a porthole and to tie a survival rope around her waist, allowing herself to be pulled away by the motorboat on the surface. At the last second, Annie gets clear and the bomb detonates, destroying the sunken ship and all the piranha with it. With all the murderous fish destroyed, Annie swims to the surface and is picked up by Steve and the two kids in their boat.
Assonitis removed Drake from the movie and decided to replace Drake with James Cameron.
James Cameron
was originally hired as the special effects director for this film and took over the direction
when the original director left (He also re-wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym H. A. Milton). Due to budget limitations the crew was composed essentially of Italians
, none of whom spoke English
. Some however did have prior experience
on horror/fantasy movies so they were, to some extent, able to satisfy Cameron's requirements.
After the first week of shooting, the set harmony was disturbed by some discussions about the work between the director and the producers (the executive producer, Ovidio G. Assonitis
, asked to verify the day-to-day activities, arguing with most of Cameron's choices), so whilst Cameron was only responsible for the shooting, most of the decisions were under Assonitis' authority. According to Dreaming Aloud, a biography
of James Cameron
by Christopher Heard, Cameron was not allowed to see his footage
and was not involved in editing. He broke into the editing room in Rome
and cut his own version while the film's producers were at Cannes
, but was caught and Assonitis re-cut it again.
In a 2008 interview on The Hour, Cameron jokingly denied breaking into the editing room, then recounted the story as a "hypothetical scenario", and told host George Stroumboulopoulos
how he "would've broken into the office" if he actually did it.
Cameron was able to make a deal with a distributor, who agreed to buy his footage and allow him to re-score and re-cut the picture-basically restructure it to what was originally intended-before release, so his alternative vision eventually came out on home video in some regions, which made a profit for the distributor.
As in the first film, which was one of many horror films inspired by the success of Steven Spielberg
's 1975 film Jaws
, piranha
s act as the antagonist monster
s harming human
life, and have developed the ability to fly, which they did not have in the first film. On the Terminator 2: Judgment Day
commentary track, Cameron jokingly defended the film, tongue firmly in cheek, as "the finest flying killer fish horror/comedy ever made." He would later employ some of the same mechanisms used to make the piranhas fly in the facehugger animatronics for Aliens
.
Most of the underwater scenes were filmed off Grand Cayman
, and the stand-in for the Club Elysium is the Mallard Beach Hyatt
. Interior scenes
were filmed on a sound stage
in Rome.
with dentures". According to Tim Healey in The World's Worst Movies (1986) the film is "a strong contender...for anyone's list of all-time horror turkeys. The film holds an 8% ("Rotten") rating on Rotten Tomatoes
.
James Cameron
refers to The Terminator as his first feature length film, despite the fact that it was made in 1984, three years after Piranha II: The Spawning. However, Cameron acknowledged the film in a 60 Minutes
segment with interviewer Morley Safer
in 2010, referring to Piranha II as "the best flying piranha film ever made".
James Cameron
James Francis Cameron is a Canadian-American film director, film producer, screenwriter, editor, environmentalist and inventor...
.
Plot
Off the coast of a Caribbean island, a young couple flee the hotel to have sex in the sea. But they swim into a sunken wreck which is also a piranha lair and they are both killed and eaten by the unseen piranha.The next day, a group of tourists, including Tyler Sherman, are taking the diving courses provided by Anne Kimbrough, an employee of the Hotel Elysium. One of her divers swims into the wreck, which she has strictly forbidden to her divers. Leaving Tyler to take over and lead the others to the surface, she discovers almost immediately that her 'missing' student has swam into the wreck and been killed there when his badly chewed up body is found.
Annie's estranged husband, Steve, a police officer, refuses to listen to Anne about her wanting to have a look at the body, because she needs to know what happened. The death does not seem to match the attack pattern by any of the marine life in this area, which she knows better than anyone. For her not to know what killed a diver is a dangerous sign. Steve intercepts Aaron, a dynamite fisherman, and his son, and threatens to confiscate their boat, but as Aaron explains, Steve, Anne, and he, are old friends.
Meanwhile, as the guests begin to flirt with each other, a pair of women arrive on a large boat. By their own admission, they are sea bandits. One sneaks into the kitchen to steal food, but is intercepted by Mel, a cook. She flirts with him, and he offers instead to make her a wonderful dinner. But as he goes to their boat with the meal, they take the meal and then undock, letting the boat drift. They try to convince him to jump, and he tries, and fails, so they mock him and sail off. They sail too far out, and are attacked by the piranha, who have developed the power to fly.
Worried about what's going on, Anne finds that she is being frequently bothered by Tyler Sherman, so she takes him with her to the morgue to get a look at the body. It is revealed there that she became a marine biologist before she married Steve, and so she begins taking pictures. There, she finds that the bodies have been eaten in many parts. A nurse comes in, kicks them out, and ends up quickly dead, for a piranha was hiding in the body and escaped it. Armed with the power to fly, it kills the nurse and escapes out a window.
In her hurry, Anne left her credit card behind at the scene. Anne and Tyler have a one night stand, but in the morning, while he sleeps, she begins to study the pictures, and is horrified by what she discovers. Steve arrives, throwing the card at her, angry first that she went to the morgue in defiance of him, and secondly that she has man in her bed. She tries to warn him of what she's discovered, but he ignores her and thinks she's a murderess.
Anne tries to tell the managers that she's cancelling the dives because it isn't safe. He at first pretends to be concerned, but swiftly fires her, thinking she is crazy. Attempting to capture one for further study, or at the very least take some pictures so she can prove what she's trying to tell Steve and the manager, she is intercepted by Tyler, who swiftly informs her that he is a biochemist and member of a team which has developed the ultimate weapon: a specimen of genetically modified piranha, with some other fish's genes intermixed, capable of flying. Earlier, and unfortunately, the team mistakenly deposited (or lost) a cylinder full of these fish in the water where the dead couple were found.
Gabby provides the proof Anne needs to Steve, calling him and showing him, not merely some flying piranha he's recently caught, and never seen before, but also that they're a serious danger, because they're turning on each other. This is a sign that they're running out of food and will soon attack whatever they come near, including humans. At a meeting, Anne tries her best to reason with the manager, to no avail. Steve surprises her, standing up for her and proving her case for her by throwing the body of a dead piranha onto the table. Steve tells her that she can't trust Tyler, because the army says he's crazy. She argued that Tyler's just been using her to get the message of the piranha out for him, to protect both himself and the residents of the hotel.
Later on, a piranha attacks Gabby's son and kills him, leaving a bereft Gabby to vow revenge by killing the fish in the wreck they hide in. Anne tries to dissuade him, but it's too late. Having ignored Anne's advice, the manager, Raoul, hosts a nighttime fish party to capture grunion, who come up to the beach to spawn at this time, making them easy prey for humans to capture and kill. Unfortunately for the residents, the piranha are also partially grunion and share the same instinct. During the fishing party promoted by the resort, the piranhas fly out of the water and attack the guests on the beach and at the hotel's courtyard pool. Anne leads those who survive into hotel, where they shut the doors and windows. Gabby tries to attack the flying piranha, but they overwhelm and kill him.
In the morning, the flying piranha withdraw back into the ocean, for Anne had discovered that they are not fond of daylight. Tyler and Anne decide to undertake Aaron's plan, and blow up the ship to destroy the predators. Meanwhile, the situation gets even tenser, for not only can the piranha fly, but Anne and Steve's son has been hired, against their wishes, by a local ship 'Captain' and his lovely daughter. They sail away and strand themselves on an island, leaving them vulnerable to piranha attacks that never actually happen. Getting lost at sea, they try to set sail again, heading straight toward the wreck.
When Annie's son and the Captain's daughter are stranded in a raft above the shipwreck, Annie and Tyler arrive in a motorboat and don scuba gear to dive down to the wreck to plant the timer charges that Gabby left behind. With only 10 minutes to get out of the wreck before the bomb explodes, Annie and Tyler are trapped in one of the sunken ships rooms by the murderous piranha who all return to the wreck. On the surface, Steve, piloting a police helicopter, ditches the chopper and swims to Annie and Tyler's motorboat where his son and his girlfriend are. With minutes left to spare before the bomb explodes, Steve powers up the boat and takes off. Down in the wreck, Tyler sacrifices himself to allow Annie to escape out of a porthole and to tie a survival rope around her waist, allowing herself to be pulled away by the motorboat on the surface. At the last second, Annie gets clear and the bomb detonates, destroying the sunken ship and all the piranha with it. With all the murderous fish destroyed, Annie swims to the surface and is picked up by Steve and the two kids in their boat.
Cast
- Tricia O'NeilTricia O'NeilTricia O'Neil is an American actress.Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, O'Neil began her career as a model and cover girl before turning to acting. She first appeared in television commercials, then was cast many popular television series. She played Dr...
- Anne Kimbrough - Steve Marachuk - Tyler Sherman
- Lance HenriksenLance HenriksenLance James Henriksen is an American actor and artist best known to film and television audiences for his roles in science fiction, action, and horror films such as the Alien film franchise, and on television shows such as Millennium....
- Steve Kimbrough - Ricky Paull GoldinRicky Paull GoldinRichard "Ricky" Paull Goldin is an American actor. He is currently in the cast of All My Children as Jake Martin since April 2008...
- Chris Kimbrough - Ted Richert - Raoul, Hotel Manager
- Leslie GravesLeslie GravesLeslie Marie Graves was an American actress. She died in 1995 from an AIDS-related illness.-Early years:...
- Allison Dumont - Ancil Gloudon - Gabby
- Carole DavisCarole DavisCarole Raphaelle Davis is an actress, singer/songwriter, and writer.-Life and career:Davis was born in London to a French mother and American Father. She grew up in England, Scotland, France, Italy and Thailand and moved to New York City as a teenager. Carole attended New York City University and...
- Jai - Connie Lynn Hadden - Loretta
- Captain Kidd Brewer Jr. - Lou
- Jan Eisner Mannon - Lisa
- Arnie Ross - Mal the Cook
- Tracy Berg - Beverly
- Albert Sanders - Leo Bell, D.D.S.
- Anne Pollack - Mrs. Wilson
- Lee Krug - Ron 'Ronny', the Lifeguard
- Sally Ricca - Cindy
- Dorothy Cunningham - Nurse April
Production
The original director of Piranha II was Miller Drake. Drake was yet another Corman graduate who had labored alongside Joe Dante in the New World trailer department—and had essayed the role of “First Mutant” in Dante’s directorial debut, Hollywood Boulevard—before becoming Corman’s de facto head of postproduction. “Jeff Schechtman said, ‘Would you like to direct this movie?’ and I said, ‘Sure,’” recalls Drake. “We met with Ovidio Assonitis and he said fine.” Drake set to work developing a script with writer Charles H. Eglee, who would later collaborate with James Cameron on the TV show Dark Angel. Miller’s intention was that Piranha II should hinge upon Kevin McCarthy’s scientist from Piranha, even though he had seemingly perished in the first movie. “I pitched this idea of bringing Kevin McCarthy back, all chewed up and mutilated from the previous movie,” says Drake. “He was on an abandoned oil rig and he was developing these flying piranhas out there to get revenge, or whatever. I think we were going to bring Barbara Steele back and have him kill her by smashing her head through a fish tank.”Assonitis removed Drake from the movie and decided to replace Drake with James Cameron.
| "I was replaced after two-and-a-half weeks by the Italian producer. He just fired me and took over, which is what he wanted to do when he hired me. It wasn't until much later that I even figured out what had happened. It was like, "Oh, man, I thought I was doing a good job." But when I saw what they were cutting together, it was horrible. And then the producer wouldn't take my name off the picture because [contractually] they couldn't deliver it with an Italian name. So they left me on, no matter what I did. I had no legal power to influence him from Pomona, California, where I was sleeping on a friend's couch. I didn't even know an attorney. In actual fact, I did some directing on the film, but I don't feel it was my first movie." |
| — James Cameron on "directing" Piranha II: The Spawning. |
James Cameron
James Cameron
James Francis Cameron is a Canadian-American film director, film producer, screenwriter, editor, environmentalist and inventor...
was originally hired as the special effects director for this film and took over the direction
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
when the original director left (He also re-wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym H. A. Milton). Due to budget limitations the crew was composed essentially of Italians
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
, none of whom spoke English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. Some however did have prior experience
Experience
Experience as a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event....
on horror/fantasy movies so they were, to some extent, able to satisfy Cameron's requirements.
After the first week of shooting, the set harmony was disturbed by some discussions about the work between the director and the producers (the executive producer, Ovidio G. Assonitis
Ovidio G. Assonitis
Ovidio Assonitis is an independent film producer and businessman with over 35 years of experience in the entertainment industry.- Biography :...
, asked to verify the day-to-day activities, arguing with most of Cameron's choices), so whilst Cameron was only responsible for the shooting, most of the decisions were under Assonitis' authority. According to Dreaming Aloud, a biography
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
of James Cameron
James Cameron
James Francis Cameron is a Canadian-American film director, film producer, screenwriter, editor, environmentalist and inventor...
by Christopher Heard, Cameron was not allowed to see his footage
Footage
In filmmaking and video production, footage is the raw, unedited material as it had been originally filmed by movie camera or recorded by a video camera which usually must be edited to create a motion picture, video clip, television show or similar completed work...
and was not involved in editing. He broke into the editing room in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
and cut his own version while the film's producers were at Cannes
Cannes
Cannes is one of the best-known cities of the French Riviera, a busy tourist destination and host of the annual Cannes Film Festival. It is a Commune of France in the Alpes-Maritimes department....
, but was caught and Assonitis re-cut it again.
In a 2008 interview on The Hour, Cameron jokingly denied breaking into the editing room, then recounted the story as a "hypothetical scenario", and told host George Stroumboulopoulos
George Stroumboulopoulos
George Mark Paul Stroumboulopoulos is a Canadian television and radio personality, best known as the host of CBC Television's George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight and being a VJ for Canadian music television channel MuchMusic...
how he "would've broken into the office" if he actually did it.
Cameron was able to make a deal with a distributor, who agreed to buy his footage and allow him to re-score and re-cut the picture-basically restructure it to what was originally intended-before release, so his alternative vision eventually came out on home video in some regions, which made a profit for the distributor.
As in the first film, which was one of many horror films inspired by the success of Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
's 1975 film Jaws
Jaws (film)
Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...
, piranha
Piranha
A piranha or piraña is a member of family Characidae in order Characiformes, an omnivorous freshwater fish that inhabits South American rivers. In Venezuela, they are called caribes...
s act as the antagonist monster
Monster
A monster is any fictional creature, usually found in legends or horror fiction, that is somewhat hideous and may produce physical harm or mental fear by either its appearance or its actions...
s harming human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
life, and have developed the ability to fly, which they did not have in the first film. On the Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Terminator 2: Judgment Day is a 1991 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and written by Cameron and William Wisher Jr.. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Robert Patrick, and Edward Furlong...
commentary track, Cameron jokingly defended the film, tongue firmly in cheek, as "the finest flying killer fish horror/comedy ever made." He would later employ some of the same mechanisms used to make the piranhas fly in the facehugger animatronics for Aliens
Aliens (film)
Aliens is a 1986 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and starring Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, William Hope, and Bill Paxton...
.
Most of the underwater scenes were filmed off Grand Cayman
Grand Cayman
Grand Cayman is the largest of the three Cayman Islands and the location of the nation's capital, George Town. In relation to the other two Cayman Islands, it is approximately 75 miles southwest of Little Cayman and 90 miles southwest of Cayman Brac.-Geography:Grand Cayman encompasses 76% of...
, and the stand-in for the Club Elysium is the Mallard Beach Hyatt
Hyatt
Hyatt Hotels Corporation , is an international operator of hotels.Hyatt Center is the headquarters for Hyatt corporation...
. Interior scenes
Scene (film)
In TV and movies, a scene is generally thought of as the action in a single location and continuous time. Due to the ability to edit recorded visual works, it is typically much shorter than a stage play scene....
were filmed on a sound stage
Sound stage
In common usage, a sound stage is a soundproof, hangar-like structure, building, or room, used for the production of theatrical filmmaking and television production, usually located on a secure movie studio property.-Overview:...
in Rome.
Reviews
Some critics called the film "abject", others opined that "the piranhas...look as though they had been remaindered from a joke shop" and that they resembled "haddockHaddock
The haddock , also known as the offshore hake, is a marine fish distributed on both sides of the North Atlantic. Haddock is a popular food fish and is widely fished commercially....
with dentures". According to Tim Healey in The World's Worst Movies (1986) the film is "a strong contender...for anyone's list of all-time horror turkeys. The film holds an 8% ("Rotten") rating on Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
.
James Cameron
James Cameron
James Francis Cameron is a Canadian-American film director, film producer, screenwriter, editor, environmentalist and inventor...
refers to The Terminator as his first feature length film, despite the fact that it was made in 1984, three years after Piranha II: The Spawning. However, Cameron acknowledged the film in a 60 Minutes
60 Minutes
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....
segment with interviewer Morley Safer
Morley Safer
Morley Safer is a Canadian reporter and correspondent for CBS News. He is best known for his long tenure on the newsmagazine 60 Minutes, which began in December 1970.-Life and career:...
in 2010, referring to Piranha II as "the best flying piranha film ever made".