Piranha II 1982 taught James Cameron how not to make sequels

  Blender Dumbass
October 12, 2025

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We all know that James Cameron is a master when it comes to making sequels. His films like Terminator 2, Avatar 2 and Aliens are extremely good examples of how to make a sequel right. Unlike Steven Spielberg that avoids sequels. Steven avoided doing the second Jaws movie. James Cameron goes for it and wins. Speaking of Steven Spielberg's Jaws, not only sequels from that film were produced. Rip-offs, like the 1978 Piranha by Joe Dante also were produced. Those were parody material B-movie exploitation films. And so writer / director James Cameron decided to take the project of making a sequel to that Jaws rip-off, with his 1982 Piranha II: The Spawning.

You can argue that from all James Cameron sequels, this one is the worst one of them. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a rating of 5%. Multiple people involved with the movie pulled their names from the film, doing an Allan Smithee technique. The composer Stelvio Cipriani took a pseudonym Steve Powder. The writer duo Charles H. Eglee and James Cameron himself, ended up in the credits as just H.A. Milton. And even the director himself, James Cameron claimed for a long time that the producer Ovidio G. Assonitis directed most of the film. Until he finally took pride in the final result, however bad-shit-crazy it is, and called it "the best movie about flying piranhas".

Now watching the film I saw a strong presence of James Cameron. Even if Assonitis did direct some of it, the film feels like a rough amalgamation of thing Cameron would do later in his career. Which makes me believe that the majority of the film ( writing and directing ) was at the very least heavily influenced by Cameron. Assonitis was probably there to ruin the picture, so the film will not cross from a B-movie to an A-movie. Like any studio head that interferes with the production, he probably was a big pain in the ass for Cameron who was directing his first movie on this project. But even though Assonitis managed to fuck up the production, the film is still undeniably James Cameron.

If the two Avatar films taught us anything about Cameron, we know that Cameron is obsessed about water and about air. He loves flying, as we see in the first Avatar and he loves marine biology as we see in the second Avatar. If you remember Titanic, we have both flying, when Rose and Jack do their ultra-romantic kiss at the nose of the ship, and we have both under-water stuff. The film literally starts with a modern dive crew literally diving to the wreck of the Titanic. Which was the whole reason the movie was made in the first place. Cameron wanted to dive down there and explore the wreck.

Guess how the film Piranha II starts? Exactly... Two characters dive down to a wreck of a ship to explore the wreck. They even dive into the wreck itself which is shot in such a way that it literally looks like it could be a part of another James Cameron deep sea movie The Abyss.

And now guess who are the bad guys in the film. I mean they are Piranhas. That is in the title of the film. But they aren't normal Piranhas. They are Piranhas with a James Cameron spin on them. They are flying fish. They are Piranhas that can fly.

The film's main character Anne Kimbrough ( Tricia O'Neil ) is a marine biologist / diver that works currently with tourists that want to dive to the wreck of the ship. O'Neil later appears in Titanic in a minor role. Her husband Steve is played by Lance Henriksen who you may know as the actor who played one of the iterations of Mr. Wayland in the Alien franchise. James Cameron first cast him here as the sea-cop. Than in Terminator as just a regular cop. And then in Aliens as the android character, who is built from the likeness of Wayland himself. Then there is their son Chris ( Ricky Paull Goldin ) who gives us a very direct reference to Avatar 2.

In Avatar 2 when the Sully family arrive to the Met Kaina clan one very important thing happens cinematically. Lo'ak ( who is about 14 ) looks at a girl ( Tsireya ) who is emerging from the water all gracefully and sexily. They later become a sort of boyfriend and girlfriend. And this moment is their first introduction. The whole moment plays in their closeups, without any dialogue. You understand that they notice each other just from how the scene is shot. And you understand that they at the very least find each other attractive.

Chris in Piranha II is also about 14 or 15 years old. And at some point at the beginning of the film ( which also happens near the sea, like in Avatar 2 ) he notices a girl, about his age. Which is shot pretty much in exactly the same way. Closeups on their faces and their facial expressions communicate, without words, that the two youngsters just decided to form a relationship. And pretty much the rest of the movie the two are madly in love.

Now here is a thing. In Titanic there is a big accent at the fact that Rose in that movie is 17 years old. And Jack ( played by DiCaprio ) kind of looks not too far from her when it comes to his age. You can even say that maybe Titanic is also an extension of the same basic idea, that originated with Piranha II. But here is a weird thing that begs a psycho-sexual analysis. We know that it would be un-safe for Cameron to do something like this in Avatar 2 so he doesn't ( kind of ), but in both Titanic and Piranha II you have at least one shot where you can clearly see the nipples of the girl in question. In Titanic it is a big scene, where Jack literally paints her. Yet she is supposed to be 17. And then later Cameron even manages to make one of the most romantic sex scenes in the film history, with a 17 year old girl. In Piranha II you have 2 teenagers go for a very erotic kiss on an island somewhere, where the girl's top malfunctions, or something, revealing her nipples to the camera.

Now here is an interesting thing. At 2016 Comic-Con James Cameron and the actors of the film Aliens did a reunion panel where they were asked questions from the audience. One of those actors was Carrie Henn who played the little girl "Newt" in the film. She was asked about her experience on the movie. That is when James Cameron proceeded to tell this story: ( he was telling it both to the audience and to the actors in the same time ):


After everybody laughs and Carrie proceeds to tell her side of the story, how she went to the hotel with her mother, with all that slime on her face. James Cameron proceeded to ask her a very strange question: "Permanent Trauma, Yes or No?". She answered "No". But the question is still weird. And the most weird think about it all is the fact that Cameron wrote that scene into the script.

The original horror premise of the facehugger is very psycho-sexual. The whole idea is that this thing rapes you with its little dick, implanting an embryo down your throat. Which you later give birth to whether you like it or not. The original chestburster scene is so powerful for this whole psycho-sexual thing. And also because it happens to a male character. Here in Aliens Cameron decides to put a little girl in the same situation. Giving us potentially a way scarier psycho-sexual moment. If the facehugger would have actually facehugged her, that would have constituted a depiction of child-rape.

And then he does Titanic with a soft-core teen porn scene. And he writes a conversation about little girl's sex life into True Lies. And then the actor that plays said little girl reveals of real sexual assault on the set of the film. And then he is also a friend with Luc Besson? I mean... No... there is nothing there. I'm sure, there is nothing there. Let's continue with the Piranha II review.

Speaking of the chestburster, Piranha II constitutes the first James Cameron movie with a chestburster. At some point the characters go into a morgue to examine a body of one of the eaten characters, to try to guess what killed him. That is when one of the characters finds out that a Piranha was hiding in this man's chest the entire time. And it bursts out of said chest to attack one of the characters.

Speaking of the flying piranhas in this movie, the effects, while janky as fuck, are actually not bad. You never fully believe that those piranhas are real, due to editing. James Cameron famously stated that the producers edited the movie without him. And he needed to sneak into the editing room to edit his changes. And stuff like that. So the editing in the film is kind of crappy. And you can't blame James for it. But the shots were piranhas are doing piranha stuff most of the time look actually kind of good. Even if every-time there is a flying piranha on the screen, you laugh instead of feeling terror. These little fish-fuckers are so hilarious.

Stelvio Cipriani did some amazing music. And a fantastic theme for those little fish-fuckers. There is like a whole set piece sequence ( with actually pretty effective tension ) where our main characters swim through the ship-wreck away from a bunch of piranhas. And the music becomes ultra-hilarious every-time the movie cuts to those little fish-fuckers. This is some utterly amazing comedy.

The movie is shit. A lot of it is illogical, a lot of is stupid. And yet I totally agree with James Cameron. It is the best movie about flying piranhas.

Happy Hacking!!!

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  Troler c:0



Don't don't, this is getting interesting. How Luc Besson, besides his view on teenagers, related to this?

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