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Tentacles (1977 Italy)

 
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Bogmeister
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 13, 2019 10:33 am    Post subject: Tentacles (1977 Italy) Reply with quote

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~ Click on the image to see a bigger version of this excellent poster. Cool

I think this one is the one about a killer octopus — it's hard to say based on the first act.

In a seaside town, people near the water are suddenly disappearing. First to go is a baby in a carriage. The mother leaves her kid to talk to a friend across the street, and of course the baby suddenly vanishes.

The carriage is in the water! Shocked

Next is a guy with a peg leg on a boat. His buddy hears a splash, and the guy is gone.

Then what's left of the bodies are found. The key to these scenes is that the filmmakers do not need to show the creature. We do glimpse its p.o.v. from the water briefly, but that's all. It doesn't clarify matters even later when the reporter on the case calls it a giant squid . . . so, I'm not too sure — but usually it's spoken of as an octopus.


_________________ Tentacles (1977) Trailer


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John Huston — more famous as a director — stars as the local reporter, and Shelley Winters is his sister. Both are about 20 years too old for their roles (Winters has a little boy, and Huston should be retired).

Claude Akins is the local top cop who doesn't need all this aggravation. Bo Hopkins has the heroic role of the ocean expert who pals around with a couple of killer whales — these play an important part in the film's final act.

Henry Fonda pops up in a cameo, talking on the phone. I'm not sure what his role was all about, but he seemed to be an important bigwig of some sort, trying to cover his backside.

All these screen veterans give their usual professional performances, but the good stuff stops there. The direction is limp and uninspired.

Getting back to the earliest scenes — when the mom sees that her baby is gone she calls her name, as if she's just slightly worried. It's a sign of how the rest of the film proceeds, sort of half-asleep and in slow motion.

This pic capitalized on both Jaws and the eco-terror trend of the seventies, and I think it did make decent money because its timing was good. But audiences were cheated severely by this one. (Wow, is it slow!)

For the plot, it's soon mentioned that the attacks have something to do with radios — it seems that a certain frequency drives the octopus crazy. There's one admittedly unusual scene when the creature attacks a boat with Hopkins' wife on board, and this galvanizes the hero later, though he still acts half-asleep. But the boat is so obviously a small model that it takes one out of the picture.

The music score is inappropriate, a playful little tune more suited for light comedy or an amusing caper picture. Also, even though it supposedly takes place in a California town, they were unable to hide the Italian accents for most of the residents (the exceptions being the big stars).

BoG's Score: 2.5 out of 10



BoG
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 13, 2019 11:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

While searching for the name of the artist who did the wonderful poster for this movie (unsuccessfully, I'm afraid), I found a website which said the filmmakers sent out "octopus info sheets" to theaters with facts about octopuses, such as the way they can pursue their prey across land and over obstacles! Shocked

The website stated that the octopus in this movie never did anything like that, but it gave me a great mental image of a scene in which a monster octopus comes right up onto a beach and pursues the people!

Try THAT little trick, Mr. Jaws! Ha! Laughing

I also remembered how amazed I was at the scene in the Japanese movie King Kong vs Godzilla which showed a giant octopus on an island, crawling slowly towards a native village .

Here's a behind-the-scenes video of the octopus used in that movie, along with a clip from the film itself.
________________________________


_ Oodako Behind the Scenes Footage (King Kong vs. Godzilla)


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Here's the full movie, but with Japanese dialog and Spanish subtitles. (Learn two languages at once! Very Happy)

The giant octopus scene starts at the 34:00 mark, and it includes few brief stop motion shots of tentacles grabbing the natives (not well done, I'm afraid).


_________________ King Kong vs Godzilla 1962


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Sat Sep 14, 2019 8:03 am; edited 1 time in total
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scotpens
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 13, 2019 3:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:

. . . The website stated that the octopus in this movie never did anything like that, but it gave me a great mental image of a scene in which a monster octopus comes right up onto a beach and pursues the people!

Now I'm picturing the octopus knocking on someone's door and pretending to deliver a candygram. Laughing
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 14, 2019 8:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Right! Or it's delivering a sushi order from Grubhub!

Hey, remember this YouTube video of the octopus that scrambles quickly across bare rock to snatch a crab and drag it back into a pool of water?


____________ Octopus gets crabby in Yallingup


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Imagine a huge octopus terrorizing Cape Code by coming onto land at night, breaking into beach houses, and dragging its screaming victims back into the ocean! Shocked

What a GREAT horror movie that would make!

You could call the movie Octopi, and some folks would think is was just Latin for "octopus".

But in fact it would be the clue that there are several of these giant octopuses (which is also a correct plural version).

When the first one is killed, the audience thinks the threat has been dealt with . . . until several more appear and the horror is ramped up! Twisted Evil

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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Krel
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 14, 2019 11:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

There is a marine lab that after the weekend was finding that crabs in the crab tank had been consumed. It happened week after week, and they couldn't figure out how it was happening. So they planted a video camera watching the tanks. They found that an octopus was squeezing through a small hole in the tank lid. It would then make it's way down the counter, and squeeze into the crab tank. After it had eaten it's fill, it would then squeeze out of the crab tank, make it's way back down the counter to it's tank, and squeeze itself back in.

David.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 14, 2019 2:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Good lord! If that amazing ability can be employed in the story I suggested, it would make an incredible scene in the movie I described . . . Octopi!

Here's the scene I just came up with.
________________________________

The wife of a local police officer and her children are awakened one night in their Cape Code beach house by the sound of the front door being smashed.

The mother grabs her cell phone and dials 911 as she and the kids rush out of their bedrooms. But they find a huge octopus inside the house, almost filling the entire living room! Cut off from both the front and back doors, they flee down into the cellar.

In her haste, the mother drops her cell phone to the floor, and the camera pans in close as we hear the operator' voice.

"911. What is the nature of the emergency? Hello? Hello, is someone there?"

The mother and her kids reach the cellar, but the octopus squeezes into the narrow stairway and oozes down the steps while the family desperately tries to hide in the back of the basement behind the piles of junk stored there.

The octopus makes is way slowly across the basement floor, shoving furniture and boxes out of the way with grime determination to reach its prey!

Terrified, the mother realizes they're domed if they don't escape from the basement. She forces open a small window high on the basement wall and pushes her children through, then she struggles to crawl out while the octopus tentacles are inches from her feet.

Scrambling out onto the sand dunes which surrounds the house, the mother and her children get to their feet and stumble towards the road. Turning to look back, they see an incredible sight! Shocked

The huge octopus squeezes through the tiny window and emerges from the house!

The mother and her kids race towards the road with the octopus slithering along the sand, closing the gap. Suddenly the area is illuminated by the lights of a police car which skids to a halt in front of them as they reach the road. The headlights reveal the giant octopus and the fleeing family.

The police officer is the mother's husband, and he's stunned for a moment by the sight of the giant octopus. But he reacts quickly to the sight of his fleeing wife and kids, and he leaps out of his patrol car . . . bearing his pump shotgun!

The monster octopus is momentarily confused by all the blinding lights of the police car, and the creature pauses while the brave mother and her kids get behind the police officer as he cuts loose with several shotgun blast at the hungry sea creature. Bloody wounds open up in the hideous cephalopod's glistening body.

Finally, this nightmare monster lurches away from the police car and retreats back towards the beach. It fades into the darkness beyond the area illuminated by the police car's headlights and leaves the heroic policeman to embrace his weeping wife and children.
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Wow . . . am I good at this or what! Wink

Geez, I oughta’ be a writer. Cool

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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ralfy
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 27, 2020 9:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

1080p version with Japanese subtitles hardcoded:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LStjV184C_Q
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