Directed by Ovidio Assonitis (as Oliver Hellman)
Written by Jerome Max, Tito Capri, and Steve Carabatsos
Starring John Huston, Shelly Winters, and Bo Hopkins
MPAA Rating: PG
Runtime: 102 minutes
Available on Blu-Ray from Kino Lorber on April 12

by Clayton Hayes, Staff Writer

Anyone sitting down to watch the 1977 Jaws knock-off Tentacles in this, the year 2022, does not do so expecting to see a cinematic masterpiece. That, I hope, we can all agree on before progressing any further in this review. The question a viewer might have when popping Tentacles into their Blu-ray tray is not if it is bad but in what specific way it is bad. A viewer might turn the case of the film over to see stills of a waterlogged corpse and a tentacle on the attack and assume (wrongly, as it turns out) that those stills are from scenes that feature in this film. They might read that it was produced (and directed, under a pseudonym) by Ovidio G. Assonitis, who was behind such varied films as 1974’s middling Exorcist knock-off Beyond the Door, 1979’s bizarro cult masterpiece The Visitor, and 1981’s “video nasty” Madhouse. They might expect a film that is, if not good, at least interesting or entertaining to watch.

I am here to say that such a viewer would be disappointed. Tentacles plods along for 102 plotless minutes, bouncing between barely-related scenes featuring barely-sketched characters. For a mid-70s Italian horror film, it’s also surprisingly tame. There’s nothing of the gore or makeup effects that might be expected from this sort of film (or this sort of producer); the closest Tentacles gets is a jump-scare that happens less than 10 minutes into its runtime. There are very few scenes in which the film’s marquee monster, a giant octopus, exerts any menace whatsoever. It barely comes into contact with the film’s human characters and, when it does, interactions are so choppily- and quickly-cut that it was difficult to make any sense of what I was seeing.

What little plot there is never seems to add up to a full film, and it isn’t surprising to see that none of the credited writers worked with Assonitis on his higher-profile films. Max and Carabatsos have only a handful of credits between them and Capri would continue to write for Italian knock-offs of blockbusters. The muddied plot only serves to highlight how little time each actor actually spends on screen. The film’s three primary characters, journalist Ned Turner (Huston), his sister Tillie (Winters), and marine biologist Will Gleason (Hopkins), may have only been on set together for a day or two given how few scenes feature more than one of them. Huston’s gruff newspaper reporter, the closest the film has to a main character, ends up as a complete dead end plot-wise.

There’s just so little substance on the screen that it’s difficult for me to imagine getting any enjoyment out of watching this film. Tentacles was so clearly an attempt to dupe moviegoers out of their money that I wonder how there’s any demand for it today. Even the moments of unintentional fun, usually the saving grace of films like this, are few and far between: A reasonably interesting score from Stelvio Cipriani; Shelly Winters wearing a giant sombrero and taking every opportunity to let people know her son’s father was Italian; John Huston smoking a cigar in a full-length nightgown and having unfettered access to all levels of law enforcement infrastructure; a finale featuring two hand puppets pulling apart a clearly-dead octopus. When Tentacles actually tries to have some fun, the best it can muster is fatphobia and some borderline-offensive ADRed Hispanic accents.

If you’re someone who has already seen Tentacles and wants to own a copy on Blu-ray, this most recent release isn’t a bad purchase. The promotional art used on the sleeve is fun (I might even be inclined to say it’s more interesting than the film itself) and the case has a reversible insert with two additional pieces of promotional art. Bonus features are scanty, with just a theatrical trailer and radio spot being included. If on the other hand you haven’t seen Tentacles and are looking for an Italian blockbuster knock-off that’s at least a bit of fun, you’d be better off looking elsewhere (perhaps to The Antichrist, which I really enjoyed).