Tentacles (1977)

October 9, 2024 8:09 AM

Several people disappear from and at the sea. Their bodies are found gnawed to the skeleton, even the marrow is missing. The scientists have no idea which animal could do such things. Dr. Turner begins to suspect that the company which builds a tunnel beneath the bay might have poisoned the environment and caused an octopus to mutate to giant dimensions...

So this was Shepherd and I's pick from his AskMe.

Y'all, this movie is unintentionally funny and bonkers. You have:

* John Huston, legendary filmmaker and actor, playing an investigative journalist in the comfiest of nightshirts whose storyline just kinda...disappears?

* Henry Fonda, clearly cashing a cheque and reading his lines as woodenly as possible

* Shelley Winters playing Huston's sister and who endures a lot of unnecessary fat jokes IMHO in this film but also wearing the largest sombrero known to man for some reason

This was one of those post-Jaws sea creature movies but it is sooooo weird. The supporting cast are all Italian so dubbing is happening. It is clearly stock footage of octopuses looking ominous. It implies the deaths of MANY children during a children's boat race. The "hero" gives a heartfelt revenge speech to his two trained killer whales. The editing and clarity of ANY storyline is so confusing so you're often going, "Wait, when did that character get that info relayed to them? Also, you can't just remove two killer whales from capitivity to fight the murderous octopus, can you?"

But for all that, it is a hoot. We laughed so so hard.

posted by Kitteh (19 comments total)

Should pair well with It Came From Beneath The Sea (giant octo attacks the Golden Gate Bridge). Kind of interesting "romantic" angle of a "modern woman" with a choice of men.
posted by SPrintF at 8:19 AM on October 9 [1 favorite]

Me, a person who regularly watches giallo movies with the same kind of dubbing and the same kind of American stars slumming it. This isn't so bad. I mean, some wooden dialogue and some weird stuff, like Winters and Huston talking about their childhood being 40 years ago (when Huston was what 30 years old?) Bo Hopkins' character being described as a "big city kid" when he's got the most cornpone South Carolina accent... But basically functional.

And then that fucking sombrero. And then "Why does Jamie need to wee-wee some much?" And really anything Winters says outside of that first scene with Huston. And then creature FX. And okay, yeah, this is pretty funny. Really, there's a lot off from the very beginning but the presence of good actors and not laughable production during the dramatic scenes means it takes a minute to add up to camp. but it sure gets there.

I'm just picturing Huston and Winters and Fonda's agents saying, "It's a sea creature picture, like Jaws! It'll be great."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:19 AM on October 9 [4 favorites]

DOT, one of our fave moments is when Our Familiar Character Actor Police Chief asks a boater who has clearly been daydrinking before being commandeered into a rescue mission about the possibility of more survivors from the race: he shrugs, shirtless and tanned, and opens another beverage.

OR: the Coast Guard merely displaying a giant TURN BACK sign from their rescue helicopter but actually not helping when the octopus strikes.

Bo Hopkins is from Greenville, SC--my hometown--and yeah, that accent! Pure Carolina. God bless.

Oh, it's very very homoerotic between Hopkins' character and his friend/fellow whale wrangler.
posted by Kitteh at 9:25 AM on October 9 [3 favorites]

The number of scenes of Fonda where they clearly did one take and he told them to fuck off is stunning.

"You'd better get yourself a good lawyer or you'll uh, your career will be over."

Also the weird take on fat people where they seduce people, have conventionally great looking partners and yet still are subjected to endless fat jokes and ridicule is weird.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:35 AM on October 9 [3 favorites]

I'm convinced that Hopkins' wife's sister was in a throuple with those dudes.
posted by Kitteh at 9:44 AM on October 9 [1 favorite]

It's like a third rate director from Italy was hired who grew up on giallo, but without heavy sexualized content, he didn't know what to put in instead. Business intrigue? Innuendo? Old maid comedy? Fat jokes? The world's shakiest chopper shots of the shore?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:47 AM on October 9 [2 favorites]

Fun piece of film trivia I saw on Letterboxd:

During the production of Tentacles, the production team lost their giant rubber octopus in the ocean. Just straight up lost it. The remainder of the film had to be completed with a scuba diver flashing the only remaining tentacle in front of the camera.

posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:16 AM on October 9 [5 favorites]

Holy shit. Just finished this and the motivational speech Will gives the killer whales to get them to hunt down and kill the giant octopus is possibly even funnier than the actual action sequence to which it leads.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:17 PM on October 9 [5 favorites]

I looked at Shepherd and went, "Wait, is he straight up asking the killer whales to help with his revenge mission? OH MY GOD HE IS."
posted by Kitteh at 12:20 PM on October 9 [3 favorites]

Anyway, this movie falls under Not a Good Movie, But Still a Good Time. Shepherd and I will be laughing about this for some time to come.
posted by Kitteh at 12:22 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]

What happened to the music at the end? First, it's weirdly silent during the hunt for the octopus. Then when it comes back, it's army movie battle music with strings and marching drums.

What happened to the (actually sort of cool) giallo-by-way-of-John-Williams'-Jaw-score stuff?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:24 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]

This is not a very good film but not without some charm. I watched it with my kid when they were maybe 8? And they always called it"tent-tackles" which I still find funny. I like the music tho by Stelvio Cipriani (who did a lot of Italian genre work in the 70s especially and James Cameron's Piranha II: The Spawning).
posted by Ashwagandha at 1:10 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]

This is a movie where I can call it up on YouTube and watch the first attack scene... start some laundry... watch some more clueless dialog... stand in front of the refrigerator and ponder tonight's dinner... replay Shelley Winters being all dramatic on the beach (Jaws: The Revenge, Tentacles -- don't let anyone take your child to the boat races)....
And no sequel? I guess I'll have to fold the towels without it.
Although they missed out on not having Winters steer a boat into the octopus (was that Jaws: The Revenge or The Little Mermaid?)
posted by TrishaU at 1:53 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]

(I am one of those mefi/fafa lurkers and just want to say how much I enjoy everyone's commentary on this one! Gold!)
posted by Nea Imagista at 6:35 AM on October 10 [3 favorites]

What happened to the (actually sort of cool) giallo-by-way-of-John-Williams'-Jaw-score stuff?

Shepherd spent a looooong time later that evening tracking down the soundtrack to add to our music server.
posted by Kitteh at 6:36 AM on October 10 [3 favorites]

I have a theory that Will's character was written as Black. "Inner city." "Kid from the wrong side of the tracks." Implied gang background. "It's really time I went and saw Africa."

I am not saying this is a great to write a Black character, only that this was probably what the writer was trying to do, for better or worse.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:49 AM on October 10 [4 favorites]

I have a theory that Will's character was written as Black. "Inner city." "Kid from the wrong side of the tracks." Implied gang background. "It's really time I went and saw Africa."

This is now my #2 favourite movie theory after my"I think Sean Connery in The Rock was supposed to turn out to have some weird Beatles connection as a bonding element or plot point, because he was from the UK at the right time, and they spend a lot of energy setting up Nic Cage as a Beatles superfan off the top."

Lots more to say here but I'm actually trying to download the movie to GIF the shrug the boat guy gives when they ask him if there are more kids out there. It's just so great.
posted by Shepherd at 10:43 AM on October 10 [3 favorites]

I'm back!

Okay. Key moment in Tentacles:

It's just after the child yacht race. About 60-100 kids have been menaced, and some definitely very killed, by an aquatic hell beast from the depths.

Boats are carrying crying, traumatized kids back, stacked like cordwood. The parents are crowding the shore, screaming, praying that their loved ones are safe.

Slowly, the kids get off the boats; parents are embracing them, rushing them away, wracked with terror and joy.

Until one woman is left. Her kid is still missing. His boatmate, son of Shelley "Largest Sombrero" Winters, when asked about him, only gives a chilling, dead, thousand-eyed stare in return.

The mother. Frantic. "Is there anyone? Is there anyone else?"

The police guy: "Are you sure there isn't anyone else on the water?"

God's perfect asshole:

https://imgur.com/a/0Kftr6s
posted by Shepherd at 12:01 PM on October 10 [7 favorites]

I was dying during the rousing speech delivered to the killer whales: People call you killers. They call me that too. Don't mean nothin'.

I'm currently telling some of my friends they absolutely need to watch this movie immediately.
posted by miss-lapin at 1:44 PM on October 14 [2 favorites]