Cold Fusion Video Reviews

• Directed by James Cameron
• Written by H.A. Milton
• Starring
  • Tricia O’Neil
  • Steve Marachuk
  • Lance Henriksen
  • Ricky G. Paull
• Produced by Chako Van Leeuwen and Jeff Schechtman
• Executive produced by Ovidio G. Assonitis

Pity the filmmakers saddled with the task of producing sequels. They’re called upon to deliver something that goes farther than the original (thus justifying the sequel’s existence), but usually with less budget and definitely fewer creative resources — after all, all the best nickels were spent on the original.

So you can imagine the frustration of first-time director James Cameron when he was handed this project: To craft a sequel to a Roger Corman Jaws ripoff, working this time with an Italian crew, and an added gimmick: This time, the piranha can fly!

“Son, um, I think you’re old enough that we can discuss some issues of ‘pesonal space’…”

As is standard with these things, we start off with the Characters You Won’t Get a Chance to Know, aka the “Meat” — two SCUBA divers exploring a sunken wreck. (Hmm… Wonder if Cameron had Piranha 2 flashbacks while he was filming Titanic?) To cement their position as soon-to-be-killer fodder, these two decide to have underwater sex, which only means that it’s a bigger shock when they’re nibbled to death by vicious piranha!

Our locale is Club Elysium, a Caribbean resort coming up on its annual event, the grunion spawning. (It’s hard to find real entertainment in the Caribbean, apparently.) As explained by diving instructor and resident know-it-all Anne Kimbrough (Tricia O’Neil), the grunions always take to the beaches on the first full moon after spring equinox, which is an occasion to party at the resort, since apparently there’s nothing sexier than a bunch of rutting fish flip-flopping all over the moonlit beach. (She does mention getting drunk as part of the festivities, which may contribute to the allure.)

Anne’s got some other spawning instincts to worry about, though — her teenaged son Chris (Ricky G. Paull) has hired on as a hand on a small sailboat run by a supercilious doofus (Ward White — think Higgins from Magnum, P.I., but not as competent) and his hot and braless teenaged daughter Allison (Leslie Graves). Fortunately, Anne’s estranged husband Steve (Lance Henriksen), with whom she shares a comfortably antagonistic relationship, is also the local one-man police force/coast guard, and thus in a position to keep a watch on Steve while at sea.

Henriksen gets down’n'dirty.

And while we’re at it, hotel guest and diving student Tyler Sherman (Steve Marachuk) has the hots for the pretty instructor, so much so that he’s taking her class even though he’s an accomplished diver. He’s also pretty much an asshole, but we’ll probably get into that later.

So now that we’ve got the situation, what happens?

Well, for the longest time, not much. Apparently unsatisfied with the establishment of that whole “spawning” theme, producer Assidio (Cameron was locked out for the editing) treats us to yet more horny people. There’s a perfectly hideous widow who’s got the hots for the lifeguard; there’s a skank on the make for a doctor, and manages to net herself a geeky dentist; there are two bikini bitches who hoodwink a stuttering cook into giving them free food for a “private party” on their boat, then leave him in the drink. Aside from the bikinied duo, not a one will have any involvement in the plot whatsoever.

Given enough stalling, though, we start in on the plot when Anne’s diving group gets permission to go down around the wreck of the recently-sunk Dwight Fitzgerald in the bay (but NOT to go in). A straggler in her group ventures into the interior and gets nibbled to death; by the time Anne goes back to find him, his exposed flesh has all been chewed away (leaving the area inside his facemask pristine — a neat effect, I have to say).

Better pack a lunch for you’re waiting for the movie to get good.

Since Anne was responsible for the diving expedition, she’s barred from seeing the body in case she’s to be held criminally liable for the death; being the resident smartypants, though, she breaks into the morgue with the help of Tyler, who’s sole redeeming grace seems to be that he’s incredibly annoying. Yup, that’s his good point. Despite Anne’s protestations that she wants to be alone that night, he basically blusters and irritates her until she just can’t help but smile, gosh darn it. I’m telling you, if being patronizing and overbearing was the way to the ladies’ hearts in the early ’80s, then I was born a couple of decades too late.

They get some pics of the body in the morgue before being chased out by the nurse (morgues have nurses?), who then discovers on her own that the diver’s body has a hitchiker — a piranha that somehow decided to nestle in his abdominal cavity for hours and hours until there was an opportunity to leap at an unaccompanied nurses neck.

Leap? Fly, I should say, on big ol’ flying-fish wing/fins; and after it chews out her throat, it then flies out through the plate glass window, conveniently leaving no evidence behind (unlike Anne, who left the credit card she used to ‘loid the lock).

CHEEEEEEEEEEESE!

After the flying piranha also munch on the two bikini bitches (hey, if you can’t depend on a horror movie to provide a simplistic retributive morality, what can you depend on?), Anne starts putting things together (seems she remembers a news report that relays the entire plot of the first movie, the only indication of continuity to be found). Oh, and she also sleeps with Tyler, much to Steve’s consternation when he walks in on them. (Tyler, listen to me: When you’re caught sleeping with another man’s wife, even in the ’70s, be apologetic, you ass!) When she goes to the hotel manager, Raoul (Ted Richert), about her suspicions, not only does he give her the canned “The beaches must stay open!” speech, but he cans her on the spot. (I guess there aren’t too many wrongful termination suits in the Caribbean.) So she and Tyler go out to the wreck again, where she manages to outswim a school of piranha before Tyler spills the beans.

See, he was actually a researcher on the project which created the super-piranha, using also genes from flying fish and grunions (thus their ability to survive out of water); four canisters of live eggs went down with the ship, and only three were recovered. I think Tyler may have left out a couple of other spliced-in genes: they manage always to aim for the jugular, so I’m guessing there’s some vampire bat in the melange, and they also somehow hover as they chomp away at their victims, hummingbird-like. (I could also speculate on spider genes, thanks to the often-visible lines holding the flying fish aloft, but that would just be snarky of me.)

And since they’ve got grunion genes, guess what’s going to come out of the water in droves under the full moon for the spawning?

Most of the rest of the movie is taken up with Steve’s quest for Chris on the off-course sailboat, the spawning attack on the resort (and baby, these fish fly — I mean, they swoop and wheel with such finesse that it’s ceased ripping off Jaws and has moved on to The Birds), and an incredibly ill-conceived plan to blow up the wreck, courtesy of an old fisherman who prefers dynamite to live bait. (Why can they depend on the piranha re-congregating there? Do schools of piranha have permanent lairs? I wouldn’t think so, but I know bugger-all about piranha; it seems like this is the kind of fact they could have fit in somewhere instead of the ongoing and completely irrelevent saga of the dentist and the golddigger.)

Guess what movie James Cameron had just seen?

Buried in here is the standard-issue subtext of the preservation of the nuclear family; we never find out why Anne and Steve split, but their concern for each other and Chris during the crisis has the expected result of putting everyone back on the same side. However, in a concession to the aftereffects of the Swinging ’70s still lingering in 1981, there’s no real transgression imputed to Anne and Tyler for thei little tryst. (Far more disturbing is the apparently low standard Anne uses for her bed partners, as Tyler is consistently as irritating as sand on a rectal thermometer.)

To be fair, this isn’t an abominably bad movie, especially within the context of horror movies in general and Jaws/nature-gone-wild movies in particular. There are even some well-shot images here and there that show the nascent skill of James Cameron. But come on — it’s a movie about flying piranha. Is it even possible for a movie on such a topic to be taken seriously? I can only imagine the peals of laughter that likely greeted the “scary” moments back during its theatrical release, a reaction which apparently was enough to convince even the Italians that this was a franchise which needed no further milking.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 18
• breasts: 2
• explosions: 5
• ominous thunderstorms: 1
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 2
  • Tricia O’Neil (Anne) played “Captain Rachel Garrett” in the TNG episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” “Kurak” in the TNG episode “Suspicions,” and “Korinas” in the DS9 episode “Defiant”
  • Carole Davis (”Jai,” one of the bikini bitches) played “Giuseppina Pentangeli” in the Voyager episode “The Swarm”