There have been some disappearances along the Solana Beach, California shoreline. Their mangled bodies later found, not much left but skeletons. Even the marrow has been sucked out of their bones. Sheriff Robards (Claude Akins) calls marine expert Will Gleason (Bo Hopkins) to assist. Will suffered from the bends recently and isn’t allowed to go in the water so he sends a couple of his best divers to check it out.
One of the sheriff’s deputies (Leonard Lightfoot) suggests that perhaps the company building a tunnel in a nearby bay may have something to do with it. The company, Trojan Industries, is run by Mr. Whitehead (Henry Fonda). The Sheriff says that anything they may be doing wouldn’t account for a baby being taken near the shore since that incident wasn’t anywhere near where Trojan is working.
Reporter Ned Turner (John Huston) is also on the scene looking for answers. Turner has lived in Solana Beach basically all his life and still lives in the family home with his sister Tillie (Shelley Winters) and her young son Tommy (Alessandro Poggi). Ned begins poking around and researching what may be happening.
When Gleason’s scuba divers get killed Gleason and his wife Vicky (Delia Boccardo) come to Solana Beach to find out exactly what is going on. Eventually it is determined that the culprit is a giant octopus that Trojan unearthed in one of its underwater explosions and the octopus is attracted to radio waves being sent out by various fishing boats. Suddenly Ned remembers that the Solana Beach Annual Junior Yacht Race is happening and dozens of children are sailing around in Giant Octopusland, including Tillie’s son Tommy.
“Tentacles” AKA “Tentacoli” was released in 1977 and was directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis. It is an Italian American horror movie. Although basically an Italian production, the movie was filmed in California.
When “Jaws” came out in 1975 so did dozens of other killer sea life movies. The fact that this one is a rip off of “Jaws” is no surprise and no reason to pan the film. Every genre and every era has its copycats. This one is no different. Even Peter Benchley, who wrote “Jaws”, wrote a novel about a killer squid as well. His novel “The Beast” was made into its own TV miniseries in 1996. I found “Tentacles” to be at least better than Jaws 2, 3 and 4. Not to mention the list of stars in the film that was a who’s who of classic cinema back in the day. Included among them are John Huston, Shelley Winters, Bo Hopkins, Henry Fonda Claude Akins and Cesare Danova.
Yes, there are drawbacks to the film. Some of the special effects were less than special. It was a little longer than it needed to be and a little slow in spots but I actually enjoyed it. There was enough tension and suspense to keep me entertained most of the time. Plus it’s got a really cool fish on octopus scene. Actually that part was real so beware.