TENTACLES (1977)
aka Tentacoli
Article 5414 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-4-2017
Directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis
Featuring John Huston, Shelley Winters, Bo Hopkins
Country: Italy USA
What it is: Eight Arms to Hold You With

A giant killer octopus terrorizes a seaside community.

John Huston is an intrepid reporter intent on finding the truth. Shelley Winters is a worried mother. Bo Hopkins is an oceanographer in charge of two killer whales who has a personal reason for killing the octopus. Claude Akins is a sheriff. Henry Fonda is the head of a company called Trojan which may be responsible for creating the killer octopus (I’m guessing the reporter must have found out through a leak or something). And then there’s whoever composed one of the most inappropriate scores in movie history; whatever chance this thriller had of dredging up a shred of suspense is lost in the web of apathy this soundtrack spins over every scene. Not that the movie had a good thing going; except for a couple of well-staged scenes, most of the movie drowns in a sea of smothering dialogue scenes that accomplish nothing and go nowhere. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a movie that so constantly takes the wind out of the sails of the plot. It drifts aimlessly and ends up dead in the water. And when it tries to pull off the same fake scare twice in a row, you’ll want to slap it silly.

Did I mention that the movie wasn’t very good?