After the success of JAWS low budget studios rushed into
production any movie they could think of that would involve some animal that
went on the rampage or was bigger than life to take on mankind. American
International Pictures (AIP) made the decision to go with an octopus, filmed
the movie in Italy to save on money and released TENTACLES to drive-ins across
the country.
The plot is simple. On a coastal town a giant octopus goes
on the rampage after a mega-corporation begins using high frequency drilling
equipment underwater nearby. It doesn’t matter that this doesn’t explain why
the octopus is this big, it’s enough to know that it makes him/her hungry for
human beings, draining their bone marrow once it catches someone.
The sheriff (Claude Akins) doesn’t know for sure what to do.
The town’s main news reporter (John Huston) has an inkling of what is going on.
The head of the corporation (Henry Fonda) isn’t happy that his company is
responsible for something like this. Huston’s sister (Shelly Winters) is
worried about her son when an attack happens. And the oceanographer that Huston
has contacted (Bo Hopkins) takes a personal interest in killing this octopus
when his wife is killed by it. As you can see, this film had a star studded
cast made up of fading or low budget names.
The movie isn’t all that bad with the exception that there
is far too much talk and not enough action involved. Worse yet is that most of
the talk is unnecessary and could have been handled much easier with filmed
sequences instead. Then again the budget spent on the octopus is enough to
include a giant eye to look through windows, a few large tentacles and several
shots involving a small octopus with obvious models being crawled over.
In the end it’s not a bad film and actually quite fun for a
drive-in style flick. That was always one of the joys for movies like this. So
if you have a TV projector then by all means nail a sheet to the garage and pop
this one in to be played.
The second feature on this Shout/Scream Factory double bill
is REPTILLICUS and it makes TENTACLES seem like Oscar material. If the dialogue
sequences in the earlier movie seemed long these seem to take forever. To make
matters worse, they’re done by some truly poor actors who bring no life to the
discussions whatsoever.
Copper miners drilling find that they’ve tapped into some
tissues where they’ve been drilling. Sending these off to scientists in
Copenhagen it turns out that the tissue isn’t dead yet. As deep as it was it
was frozen but when a scientists accidentally leaves the freezer door open it
thaws and begins to regenerate itself. Soon the tail has grown into a full
dinosaur sized creature that seems intent on eating anyone who gets in its way.
The U.S. Army and Navy are called in to stop this monster
but to no effect. And when they realize that if they blow it up each of the
pieces will simply regenerate into another one they’re troubled as to how to
deal with this creature. Rest assured that a way will be found.
The movie has all sorts of problems. Certain segments of the
movie have a flutter problem but I have little doubt as much as possible was
done to contain this. The acting from all members is terrible. The dialogue is
terrible. A character played for laughs might entertain young children but no
one else. And the effects with the monster are so bad as to make them funnier
than the previously mentioned character. The monster looks like what it is, a
puppet of sort controlled by strings that at times are readily apparent.
This is one of those movies that you probably saw at age 5
or 6 that seemed amazing back in the sixties or perhaps the seventies but that
now will make you cringe at the thought that it may have scared you back then.
On the other hand it could make for a fun evening of people sitting there
watching it tossing out lines of dialogue or jokes ala MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER
3000. For me that would be the only way to make this movie worth watching. A
must have for collectors and fans only.
Click here to order.
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