TENTACLES
Well, it's better than Crocodile...
...but in the illustrious, three-film heirarchy of giant- tentacle-monster thrillers (are there others?) this one ranks below The Beast and way below Deep Rising.
This flick opens up with a marvy little display of parental responsibility. Playing with her infant son at the shore of an oceanside park, a mother sees a friend of hers and goes over to talk to her. So, she crosses the park, crosses the busy street on the other side of the park, talks to this lady for a while...and, well, no points for guessing what kind of sucker-covered rubbery appendage grabs that kid.
The only question, of course, is...octopus, or squid? It's octopus, although the movie's half over by the time anybody figures that out. It's not just an octopus, it's a big, mean giant octopus which gets pissed off by radio signals.
Samuel Z. Arkoff somehow managed to nab no less than four Oscar winners for this one, although one of them is Shelley Winters.
It's not really awful, but it does have its moments of sheer ridiculous badness (the climax is so murky and chaotic that, we, it's like Michael Bay in mud) and over-the-top unintentional hilarity (like when Bo Hopkins gives a heartwarming speech to the soldiers he sends off to do battle with the octopus...the thing is, these soldiers happen to be killer whales). And how is it that the whales have those huge, fold-over dorsal fins in the aquarium, but as soon as they're out to sea, the fins stick straight up out of the water?
For fans of cheesy 70's-style star-laden crap, I suppose, and anyone who really wants to see a couple of killer whales tug on a rubber octopus.