Yeah, he’s dead, but why Mr. Octopus sticks his victim’s legs up in the air like this is a mystery. Maybe he’s proving his kill like baseball players are supposed to flaunt the ball after catching it?
Henry Fonda. Shelley Winters. John Huston. Names that adorn Hollywood like party bunting. And what do you get when you put them all together?
Tentacles (1977), that’s what.
And you don’t want to know what that might be. Much like the previously reviewed Scream and Scream Again (1970), this is a bait and switch movie, the great names not working to any great affect, although Huston does a bit more with his part than do any of the rest of the headliners from either of the two movies. He’s investigating the mysterious deaths of people in and near the water.
And then entire boats start disappearing.
And it may have something to do with the radio.
And, after a while, we were cheering the octopus on. Except when I was yelling at the television, “Oh, god, Henry, what did the producers have on you to induce you to make this piece of tripe?!”
This is our apple tree, and it’s full of rotten apples.
And while maybe, just maybe, we can blame the cuts for the television for some disastrous movies, Tentacles is really fairly much devoid of any sympathetic characters. Maybe the octopus will get your sympathies, since all the blame is devolving onto Fonda’s company that’s using far too much energy in its probes for oil, thus stirring up the octopus.
But, honestly, the only clever part was using a couple of killer whales to attack the octopus.
Ever hear about the book that was so bad that the reviewer not only didn’t finish it, but heaved it across the room? This is a movie that deserves to have rotten food thrown at it.
And we have a tree full of rotten apples, just waiting to be used on tripe like this.
