5.3 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A scuba diving instructor, her biochemist boyfriend, and her police chief ex-husband try to link a series of bizarre deaths to a mutant strain of piranha fish whose lair is a sunken freighter ship off a Caribbean island resort.
Starring: Lance Henriksen, Ted Richert, Tricia O'Neil, Steve Marachuk, Ricky Paull GoldinHorror | 100% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
BDInfo
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
After serving as a visual effects supervisor for some of Roger Corman's films and a matte artist for John Carpenter on Escape from New York, James Cameron got his first opportunity to direct, which turned out to be a sequel to Joe Dante's Piranha. A couple of producers approached Cameron about the job while the Ontario native was working on the creature feature Galaxy of Terror. Piranha II's original director was Miller Drake but he was let go by the Egyptian/Italian producer Ovidio Assonitis due to creative differences. There has been much speculation about what happened before, during, and after the production of Piranha II and I'll briefly summarize some of my findings. One of the best interviews Cameron gave about this film was to Nigel Floyd of Dark Side magazine in 1992. When Cameron came on board, he intended the sequel primarily as a horror comedy and sought Romeroesque humor with flying piranhas knocking down pedestrians on the sidewalk...but that didn't make it to the screen. However, it should be pointed out that Warner Bros., the original distributor, insisted that the film have piranhas capable of taking flight in an effort to distinguish the killer fish from their predecessors in the first film. You'll notice on this Blu-ray distributed by Shout! Factory that the main title prints Piranha II: Flying Killers (See Screenshot #20) instead of Piranha II: The Spawning or the more generic Piranha Part Two. Cameron claims to have shot roughly half of Piranha II but was fired after two or two-and-a-half weeks by Assonitis, who thought the future auteur was simply too experienced.
Hey, mom. How about a piranha for breakfast?
Piranha II makes its Blu-ray debut worldwide courtesy of Shout! Factory on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50. The 94-minute Producer's Cut is struck from a new 2K scan from the original camera negative and sports an average bitrate of 30997 kbps. Shout! has rectified the heavily cropped Sony DVD from 2003 (which was reformatted in pan and scan) with a beautiful 1.85:1 presentation that resuscitates Piranha II's native aspect ratio. Considering all the production difficulties that transpired on-set and off, I was amazed at how good the image looks. The film appears to have undergone extensive color correction with hues that seemingly recreate the theatrical experience. For example, skyline and sea blue look clean and luminous. Skin tones are natural without any evidence of manipulation. Grain remains present without any distracting mosquito noise. I noticed only one instance of really noticeable print damage.
There are a dozen chapter breaks available on the main menu.
Shout! has supplied the movie's original monaural sound rendered here as a DTS-HD Master Audio Dual Mono (1660 kbps, 24-bit). For a pretty low-budget production, this lossless track sounds rock solid. Dialogue is relatively clean and discernible for the most part. I thought Steve Powder's music was effective underscore, oscillating between contemporary rock pop and more traditional with instruments like French horns. There is nice separation of the score along the front channels.
Optional English SDH can be accessed through the menu or via remote.
It's unfortunate that Shout! Factory was unable to license or acquire the Director's Cut or enlist Cameron's participation on this release but it's good to have at least one version finally available in HD. The movie suffers from obvious problems ranging from too many stock characters, poor performances, and weak plotting. But I think Piranha II has a cultish charm about it that has rubbed off me. To the film's detractors (and I know there have been many): at least Cameron took the bad experiences he suffered on Piranha II to inspire his next film...and everyone knows what that was! Indeed, he reported that his nightmares included a certain cyborg warrior. RECOMMENDED FOR FANS.
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