Tentacles

source: Tentacles

Trailer—Tentacoli

Tentacoli

This has to be one of the biggest wastes of talent put on a screen. A cheesy rip off of JAWS(1975). An enraged octopus terrorizes a popular tourist site on the California coast. The whole project seems hackneyed and cheep. High dollar names in the cast can't keep this one from floundering. Appearing are: Henry Fonda, Shelley Winters, John Huston, Bo Hopkins and Claude Akins.

This wasn't so bad, with a run time of about 100 minutes and it being an Italian Jaws rip-off this had all the ingredients of a terrible giant monster movie, most underwater monster movies are really boring and cheap, "Tentacles" its neither of those, at least its only that for a few scenes. The music its good, the direction its decent, the acting its serviceable and the attack scenes are not suspenseful but they are fun to watch. One big problem is that its terribly overwritten and most of the plot points it introduces don't really have a conclusion or at least not a satisfying one. Also, this movie has a thing for duality, I don't know if its intentional or not, but that's just something I noticed. For being a movie with real stars and decent effects it could be considered somewhat disappointing but I haven't heard many good things about it, so I decided to give it a decent rating, however, sometimes it was dangerously close to a notorious Ed Wood movie scene.

Yes, this one is another cheaply produced flick to capitalize on the market created by THE killer shark movie. The "plot" here concerns a giant octopus eating residents of "Ocean Beach." This is one poor excuse for a movie in the end: The special effects are shoddy, performances are embarrassing, especially considering that there are some big names (John Huston??!?) in this, and overall the movie is terrible. However, to the fan of chessy cinema, this one will not disappoint. I enjoyed this one a lot, but again, don't watch this in a serious mood...if viewed with a straight face, this may well be one of the worst movies of all time. Instead, enjoy it for what it is...another cheesy giant monster flick and pass the popcorn. hehehe.

If you like Jaws or if you like bad movies or if you're a fan of any of the big name actors who appear in this wonderfully awful Italian film then I recommend it.

Well, hysterically bad! Everyone else's comments already hit the nail on the head, so I don't know what is making me laugh harder- this movie or the comments! I hope everyone involved in making the movie at least had a good time in Italy and Southern California. Hopefully they were laughing, too. Huston was way too much of a genius not to have seen this as what it is- dreadful. Perhaps he thought it was a farce of some kind? I would love to have been a fly on the wall during the after filming drinks Huston, Winters, and Fonda must have shared. The effects are bad, the dubbing atrocious, I couldn't tell if the weird sounds were music or sound effects, some scenes were lifted almost exactly from Jaws... I could go on, but I think you've got the idea. If it is rainy outside, and you're bored and ready for a laugh, go ahead and watch. But don't say you haven't been warned.

Did this movie strike anyone else as odd in that the big name actors (mainly Huston and Fonda) seem to be delivering their lines as though they don't know the plot of the film? Fonda in particular has so many scenes where his lines are vague and could fit into any number of plots, I truly wonder if he signed on for a giant cephalopod film.

A mutated giant octopus wreaks havoc on a California seaside community. Although the film was intended to cash in on the success of "Jaws", "Tentacles" also bears numerous resemblances to the 1955 science fiction horror film "It Came from Beneath the Sea". The "Jaws" connection is clear, with the popular seaside community during a certain patriotic festival. But there is that added factor of corporate wrongdoing. The film's score was done by Italian composer Stelvio Cipriani, who scored the similarly Jaws-inspired films "The Great Alligator" and "Piranha II: The Spawning" around the same time. Cipriani's score is one of the most memorable parts of the film, along with Shelley Winters' hats. What is up with her sombrero? The acting is choppy, with only the big name actors even trying, making them seem out of place when compared to everyone else.