Piranha 2: The Spawning (1981)

The inaugural directorial effort for James Cameron (Terminator) and sequel to the '78 Piranha film, though this doesn't have any of the characters from the 1st film and it also changes the setting, as well as the premise. It takes place somewhere in the Caribbean. The first victims are a young couple who decide to have sex underwater at night. The main character (Tricia O'Neil) works for a hotel, taking tourists out on the ocean for some scuba-diving. She has a son and is estranged from her husband (Lance Henriksen, the only well-known actor in the cast), the local top cop who usually gets around in a speedboat. She is courted by a newcomer who it's later revealed knows about these deadly fish; it's another of those biochemical experiments - these are the results of combining various fish properties - and now we have flying piranha! The final act revolves around another trope - the rich greedy bastard who won't listen to the warnings and results in many guests getting attacked.

The film is something of a chore to sit through, but it's not the worst in the genre. The most effective scene takes place in a morgue because there's genuine unexpected scares and gore. But, for the most part, the small budget probably placed many constraints on Cameron, who went on to much more entertaining fare. I expected, for example, much more carnage in that big attack scene near the end, but it seems like only a few people get chewed up in that scene. The flying fish FX aren't too bad. Only after watching this recently did I realize that Cameron got a chance to indulge in some underwater filming for this movie, something he was known to favor ever since his big epic The Abyss 8 years later. BoG's Score: 3 out of 10
Star Trek actor alert: O'Neil guest-starred in the famous TNG episode Yesterday's Enterprise as the rare (for that time) female ship's captain; much of the film was actually directed by the producer Ovidio Assonitis, which may explain its different style from the later Cameron films; Cameron was also ill with a high fever during post production, at which point he dreamed of the metal endoskeleton rising from the flames, an image from the eventual next project, The Terminator (1984).