Piranha II: The Spawning(1982)
1982 · James Cameron · 94 min
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.
Horror
4.3325 votes
TMDB score
2/5
Intensity
2/5
Gore
1/5
Stays with you
How scary is Piranha II: The Spawning?
It kicks off with a mysterious diving death and then spends its middle stretch on resort drama and mild mystery before ramping up into a string of attack scenes toward the end. The scares come from cheesy monster-fish attacks rather than dread or mind games, so it plays more like a goofy creature feature than anything that gets under your skin. Blood and rubber-fish effects show up in bursts rather than nonstop, and the tone stays light and silly even when people are getting bitten. It's a fun, so-bad-it's-good watch for creature-feature fans, not something that will stick with you after the credits.
On The Horror Database's 0–5 scare profile, Piranha II: The Spawning rates psychological 1/5, visceral 3/5, gore 2/5, lingering effect 1/5, and overall intensity 2/5.
- Psychological: 1 of 5
- Visceral: 3 of 5
- Gore: 2 of 5
- Lingering: 1 of 5
- Intensity: 2 of 5
Slow burn vs Jump scares: 55 of 100 — balanced
Supernatural vs Real-world: 35 of 100 — leans Supernatural
Fun-scary vs Disturbing: 10 of 100 — leans Fun-scary
Intensity over runtime
Shape only — no eventsReveal pacing shapeHide pacing shapeHidden by default — shows where the tension peaks and lets up.
A cheap, slow-building creature-feature that stays fairly mellow for most of its length before ramping up into a chaotic, gory finish.
Intensity across the runtime, 0 to 100: 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2, 3, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4.
Watched it? Sign in to confirm whether this profile fits.
