Tentacles
by Ovidio G. Assonitis
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Product details
Actor: Bo Hopkins, Delia Boccardo, Henry Fonda, John Huston, Shelley WintersDirector: Ovidio G. Assonitis
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC, Original recording reissued
Release Date: 2000-12-05
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Publisher: MGM (Video & DVD)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
VHS Movie Reviews of Tentacles
Movie Review: Almost Worth It for One Nightmarish Scene
Summary: 2 Stars
If you've read the other reviews, you already know how bad this "movie" is.
The only really scary moment is when the sole survivor of a nighttime encounter with said monster aboard a yacht or cabin cruiser is twisted around & lifted into the air by the octopus, as if she were a trophy. This one scene is very disturbing / frightening.
I don't know how they got the actress to do this incredibly creepy scene.
That was one really pissed-off octopus!
This one scene should have been saved for a "real reel" feature, and the rest should have been burned up forever.
Movie Review: Dire
Summary: 2 Stars
There is an old Latin saying "caveat emptor" which ,roughly translated ,means "let the buyer beware" .Any prospective purchaser of this movie ,lured by the big names on the cover -Henry Fonda ,Shelley Winters and John Huston -should be aware they all feature in cameo roles and are NOT the stars of the movie .I suspect none actually worked more than a day on the picture .
The movie was produced by an Italian producer ,Assonitis,whose speciality was producing low rent versions of recent Hollywood smashes .His movie Beyond the Door shamelesly stole from The Exorcist and in Tentacles it is Jaws which gets ripped off .Unlike the Spielberg movie this is not the least bit exciting or well made .The predictable plot sees the California coast ravaged by a giant octopus, especially during one weekend when a major boating regatta is due to be held.It targets boaters and swimmers ,including Whitehead(Fonda)and Lillie Turner(Winters).Huston crops up as Winters'brother ,Ned Turner an investigative journalist .
Tentacles is an imitation of an imitation .Jaws is a great movie but it is not original -it derives from 50's models like Horror of Party Beach and It Came From Beneath The Sea ,while its sub plot of to close or not close the beaches is a steal from Ibsen's great play An Enemy of the People.Spielberg however gave us characters of depth and background and his movie worked on a mythical level as well as a purely narrative one .Assonitis does not try to put a new spin on an old story but happily retreads old ground .This is okay as long as you do it competently but Tentacles is not even competent -the acting is basic ,the effects are derisory and the only thing that works is a good Euro=pop score by Stelvio Cipriani .
This is pretty dire and I advise you to avoid it unless you actually collect stinkers
Movie Review: This is so poor
Summary: 2 Stars
"Tentacles" is a "Jaws" clone in so many ways you would have more fun setting a competition for spotting them than you would watching this movie for it's own merits. Some people at a resort disappear from the ocean shores and later turn up dead. One of them is a baby in a stroller that was somehow dragged down a cliff face along with the stroller. So it must be something with very long arms. Yes, of course it turns out that the resort is being terrorized by a giant octopus.
This film is bland, unsuspenseful and uninvolving. And yet it somehow has Shelley Winters, Henry Fonda and John Huston in it! Strangely though, none of the big name actors ever get near the monster, or even dip their toes in any sea water. All of their scenes are boring, talky and unimportant.
The "action" sequences all centre around very minor characters, and they are all very unconvincing. Shots of the octopus attacking are murky and indistinct at all times. And when it appears, the film underscores them with the weakest, drippiest musical cue of all time - a single, five-note squiggle played on what sounds like a harpsichord. Obviously intended to ape the famous "attack" music from Jaws, it's instead hopelessly lame. And they repeat it ALL the time!
The octopus itself is no better. When it attacks a kids yacht regatta in the film's "big" sequence, it is depicted by a plastic head that sticks out of the water like a crocodile's head would, steaming at breakneck speed through the waves, ramming and overturning all the yachts. I'm not an expert, but is an octopus really capable of swimming in this way? And despite the movie's title, there is not a single shot of any "tentacle" activity in this scene. The script attempts to crank up the tension by having Shelley Winters try and call the youngsters with a walkie-talkie (the only time she ever gets to do anything actually connected to the main action of the movie), but it generates no suspense whatsoever.
There are one or two good sequences (a night attack that scuppers a small boat was fun), and the widescreen photography and underwater footage looks very impressive at times. This movie was no cheapskate affair, in fact the yacht regatta is quite skillfully filmed (although the actual attack is very badly filmed) and the expanse of ruined boats that silently litter the ocean afterwards is quite effective.
Sadly the film is just too boring to hold your interest. I mean, a yacht regatta, however well filmed, is not the most exciting thing to look at - especially in what is supposed to be a horror movie. The octopus is never clearly seen, not even at the climax. You can't ever tell how big it is supposed to be. And meets its end in a really stupid "battle of the undersea titans" way that seems even more unlikely than the fact that there ever was a giant octopus in the first place. Nature lovers take note - the poor thing gets ripped apart at the end...I hope the stunt octopus used was actually already dead when this happened.
I'm sorry to say it, but this movie is not worth your time, because there is never really anything to see. Bad movies are fun, but while a "good" bad movie can commit many faults, the only thing it must not be is boring. And "Tentacles" is boring.
Movie Review: Utter Garbage
Summary: 1 Stars
In 1978, my dad, a USAF Major and WC-130 pilot, was given orders to report for duty at Andersen AFB in Guam. Once we got situated, we noticed that there were three movie theaters on base, two indoor and one outdoor with amphitheater seating. At the time I was 8 years old and was really excited to see this movie at the outdoor base theater which at the time I thought was the greatest thing to come out on the cinema screen since "Star Wars." A few years ago, I saw this "film" (using the term rather loosely) on AMC and thought to myself, "what was I thinking back then?" The acting was horrible, the effects were at best Jr High Schoolish, and overall wasted about two hours of my life watching this garbage . If you thought "Showgirls" was high cinematic art, you may like this film. If you want to see a scary movie with a REAL scary sea predator, watch the original "Jaws." But by all means avoid like the plague unless it is on MST3K.Movie Review: Bad, even by Drive In standards
Summary: 2 Stars
I definitely have fonder memories of what was going on in my car at the drive-in than what was going on up on the movie screen. I believe my date's name was Jody and the movie (second on the bill) was TENTACLES.The only thing I remember were the puppet killer whales tearing a real octopus apart for the finale (a dead octopus, from what I've read--but this was a European film, right?).
The only reason I'm writing a review for this movie--in the off-chance that you'll actually watch it--is to share some trivia: all of Henry Fonda's scenes were shot in his backyard. He agreed to do this piece of crap as long as they paid him and HE DIDN'T HAVE TO LEAVE HOME! Is that hilarious? He just walked out to his backyard, shot all his scenes on his own lawn furniture (most on a dummy phone, as I recall), and picked up a check.
You're going to put more effort into watching this movie than Henry Fonda did APPEARING in it!
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