Tentacles (1977)
- Andrew Smith
- May 27
- 5 min read
"Each year 10,000 tourists visit Ocean Beach. This summer Ocean Beach has attracted SOMETHING ELSE!"
Plot
When people start mysteriously disappearing in a small seaside resort, a reporter believes that it has something to do with an underwater construction project run by a local businessman. However as more people go missing, the reporter and his marine expert friend come to suspect that there may be something more deadly in the water - a giant octopus.
Review
The slew of Jaws rip-offs/clones/imitators/cash-ins that sprung up in the wake of Spielberg's masterpiece is no surprise given cinema's penchant for beating a dead horse to death and trying to make as much money out of popular fads. One of the earliest and one of the worst is this stinker from Italy featuring a giant octopus in the role of nature's death bringer. I can't really remember too many Jaws rip-offs being any good (Piranha probably being the pick) and the rest seem to be gunning for the title of ‘worst Jaws rip-off ever made.’ Well it's quite possible that we have a winner here with Tentacles, although the competition is extremely tough!
Like the others, Tentacles’ script clearly borrows heavily from Jaws, including the now traditional ‘monster attacks local regatta’ scene and a grisly corpse popping out the water to scare someone ala Ben Gardner’s disembodied head in the boat scene. But borrowing something doesn't mean to say it will work again and in this case, nothing works that has been plagiarised because there's no build-up or anticipation. There's just no tension or excitement at all. Attack scenes have no suspense and they're almost blood-free which is a crime given that this is a 1970s Italian exploitation film. That specific regional genre is practically defined by its willingness to push the boundaries of gore and visceral shock. It's also a bit harder to get worked up about a killer octopus than it is a killer shark but at least make the effort. Tentacles drops the scares into the lap of the audience without doing any of the necessary structural groundwork. Yet the octopus isn't given any credibility or channel enough fear to make it appear a real threat, outside of the initial kill where it, surprisingly, plucks a small child from a pushchair. In one of many references to Jaws, the build-up mimics the classic Alex Kitner attack, with various cars moving in front of the camera to act as quick cuts, though lacking any of Spielberg’s masterclass in building tension.
In fact, Tentacles’ biggest issue is that no one realises the culprit is an octopus for a long time, meaning that the human scenes are seemingly pointless. At least the main character in Jaws knew that it was a shark and therefore even though the shark was not in the scene, it was still being talked about and made to seem like a serious threat. By the time the characters have figured out the score here, the film is half way through. The strength with Jaws was that when it was on land, the story kept moving forward and the characters were interesting and well-acted to keep you going until the next time the shark attacked. But that's not the case here as the land scenes are terribly dull and uninteresting, moving ahead aimlessly without any real purpose. Even when the characters do occasionally go out to sea, they do nothing but scuba dive. If you like scuba diving then maybe this is the film for you as there's lots of it. It's all well-filmed underwater and the sea looks nice and clean but it's not exciting. Everything is literally treading water for the first half of the film, desperately waiting for the narrative to deliver the lightbulb moment when the characters realise the threat they’re up against.
At worst, you’d expect that the eventual threat, the octopus, is brought to life with a bit of energy and menace. The special effects are not so special, a real visual failure, and the octopus seems to be just stock footage of an ordinary octopus which is then edited into the film to simulate it attacking people. I think there are a couple of prop tentacles used in attack scenes but the effects are all so poor, it's hard to distinguish between them all. The human brain instantly recognises the spatial disconnect. You can tell immediately that the actors and this regular-sized octopus are not existing in the same physical space. The scale is wrong; the lighting is wrong. There is arguably the world's worst toy boat prop used for one scene in which the octopus drags it underwater, in what looks like a bathtub, masquerading as a terrifying maritime disaster. And to top it all off, the finale involving the octopus battling a pair of killer whales look like hand puppets trying to fish an octopus out of an aquarium – all very feeble. Conceptually, it’s a clash of ocean titans. But the ambition of the script completely outpaced the budget and the talent of the effects department. It results in a climax that is visually pathetic.
There are some big names in the cast including John Huston, Shelley Winters and Henry Fonda however none of them has any sort of interaction with the octopus at all. They all disappear about two thirds of the way in which is probably a good thing as the script is dire anyway so the less talking these people do on screen, the better it is. Also along for the ride is Bo Hopkins and Claude Atkins so the cast is truly stacked but the three-man writing team doesn’t know who to focus on and the disjointed narrative keeps switching around between everyone. Fonda’s subplot is just dropped and Winters’ subplot about her and her son is pointless padding. They do what is needed though and that’s allow director Ovidio G. Assonitis to slap some names on the poster to sell a few more tickets.
Final Verdict
Tentacles might appear to be a polished production with some top talent and it looks good with some great cinematography, but these are only superficial coverings which try and hide its purely incompetent, cash-grab nature. At times, Tentacles is pretty much unwatchable, whilst at other times the sheer inept creative choices will be good for a laugh or two. I'd like to think of some octopus joke to round this review off, but the film has sapped my creative juices from me!
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Tentacles Director(s): Ovidio G. Assonitis Writer(s): Jerome Max, Tito Carpi, Steven Carabatsos Actor(s): John Huston, Shelley Winters, Bo Hopkins, Henry Fonda, Delia Boccardo, Cesare Danova, Alan Boyd, Sherry Buchanan Duration: 104 mins |  |
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