When a movie is released and does tremendous money at the box office one thing immediately follows. Tons of movies that want to follow the original as close as they can without breaking copyright laws. When JAWS was released in 1975 it was followed with numerous films that found man pitted against something in the ocean. ORCA and PIRANHA and UP FROM THE DEPTHS are but a few of the movies that came out. And in 1977 TENTACLES was released.
Solana Beach is your typical seaside tourist city on the California coast. Their big event is a sailboat race that’s due to take place soon. Before that happens stranger things begin to occur. A baby is lost sitting in its stroller near the water while her mother talks to a friend. A fisherman’s body is found and later the baby’s. Both are have had the fluids and marrow sucked from their bodies.
Intrepid reporter Ned Turner (John Huston) believes that this is somehow connected to the drilling being done by the Trojan Construction company. They are in the midst of building a tunnel underwater on the coast and using unapproved methods to do so. Mr. Whitehead (Henry Fonda) insists nothing is being done wrong. But the head of the project John Corey (Cesare Danova) isn’t quite letting him know what’s going on.
After a submersible underwater vehicle is crushed underwater and the two men inside gone, Sheriff Robards (Claude Akins) contacts the one person best suited for the job. Wil Gleason (Bo Hopkins) is an oceanographer who deals specifically with ocean animals. Currently he’s been training two killer whales in captivity, learning how to communicate with them. He and his wife Vicky (Delia Boccardo) arrive in Solana Beach and are met first by Turner who he met back home.
As this is transpiring we also meet Tillie Turner (Shelly Winters), Ned’s sister. Single and playing the field she lives with Ned along with her pre-teen son. He and his best friend have talked her into letting them enter the sailboat race. She agrees and goes along with them to add her support.
We’ve seen bits and pieces of the culprit and know that this is a giant octopus creating the carnage. It turns out that the radio signals the Turner Company has been using have exceeded legal limits and brought forth the giant creature. Is there any doubt this creature will attack the sailboat race? While Gleeson is out looking for the octopus his wife’s sister’s boat is attacked and later hers as well, leaving all behind dead. With a personal motive now Gleeson heads out to confront this monster from the deep.
So yes, there is a lot of hokey stuff going on in this movie. And so much of it is familiar to fans of JAWS. But it actually stands up better than one would expect. The underwater photography is well done and that makes it a step above many movies in this genre. The creature effects are actually well done here too, especially when you realize this was made in the days before CGI took over.
The acting here is better than one would expect of a low budget film. Huston does a great job as the time weary dogged reporter. Hopkins was always an actor that few gave credit to and who deserved more. He carries the film for the most part. The worst piece of casting here was Shelly Winters. By this time her abilities as an actress were questionable. And the fact that she was 57 years old here playing the mother of a pre-teen son was just so wrong.
Kino Lorber is releasing the film to Blu-ray with new cover
art as well as the original artwork. The extras are sparse on this one and include
a radio spot and a collection of trailers. I was pleasantly surprised by this
one. It was better than I expected. If you enjoy films in this genre then make
a point of picking this one up.
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