TENTACLES

TENTACLES

Original Title:
Tentacoli

German Titles:
Der Polyp - Die Bestie mit den Todesarmen / Angriff aus der Tiefe / Tentakel des Todes

Italy / USA, 1977
Director: Ovidio G. Assonitis
(under the pseudonym Oliver Hellman)

4/10

Ah, childhood memories! "Tentacles", a gorgeous piece of Italo-trash and one of the first 'horror' films I've ever seen. It's a quite silly and unintenionally hilarious "Jaws" rip-off, super-cheesy and made on the cheap, yet, it's pretty entertaining, especially when you're a fan of cheesefests like "The Last Jaws" or "The Rift".

Filled with dull and endlessly boring dialogue scenes, thankfully the octopus scenes are all highly enjoyable, sometimes even a bit suspenseful (highlight: the fabulous opening with the disappearing baby buggy).

The soundtrack is nice but sadly too repetitive, the dialogue is mostly rather dumb, the plot is lame and whoever came up with the idea of inserting a couple of completely pointless freeze-frames should burn in hell.

At least the cast is pretty ok, especially because of a few solid guest appearances from Hollywood veterans (Henry Fonda, John Huston, Shelley Winters...).

Overall, a wonderful so-bad-it's-good-guilty-pleasure.

Wiki ~ Imdb