Creature From the Black Lagoon is a fantastic movie. I would go so far as to say one of the greatest monster movies ever made. I bring this up because Octaman is a fuck-awful pseudo-remake written and directed by the writer of Creature. Apparently Harry Essex thought he could do better. Wanna know a secret? Just between you and I, he was wrong.
After a shockingly goofy credits sequence displayed over Octaman (who, later in the movie, will display an amazing ability to impale people with his tentacles – who knew!?) floating around a blackened soundstage waving his arms, we’re ready to start our strangely familiar story.
Dr. Rick “Suave Scientist Hero Guy” Somethingorother is doing a study of the long-term effects of nuclear weapons testing in a small fishing village in Mexico. One of his assistants finds a small, rubber octopus with demon eyes wandering around the swamp. The thing seems to be listening to something else deep in the swamp, taking signals. Being a scientist, Dr. Rick feels compelled to round up a motley crew of friends and colleagues and head into the swamp in a giant RV (!?) to track down the source of the demonic mutated octopi. The creatures have portions of human DNA in their makeup, so Rick claims, and atomic mutation is responsible.
How, of all the random stuff that atomic radiation can do to a creature, are we supposed to believe that it caused a spontaneous evolution of human DNA in octopi? I mean, I know we’re just supposed to go with it in movies like this, but they’re not even fuckin’ trying! At least the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had to have some human contact before the ooze turned them anthropomorphic. Man, when the Ninja Turtles’ science is better than the science in your movie, there should be some rewrites in the offing. Or maybe just give up and stop making your shitty movie, that would be good, too.
While he’s gone, Octaman shows up, kills his porters, and destroys his camp. Once the group returns to embark on their swamp journey, they meet a couple of locals who tell them it was the Octaman who destroyed their site. Since the word of random Mexican villagers speaking about horrible sea serpent monsters is apparently good as gold, they join the group of scientists (plus one requisite girl, who appears to be rapidly approaching her sixties and is a pretty damn poor substitute for Julie Adams).
After a bunch of nearly unwatchable fiddling around in the swamp, they finally meet the Octaman, who takes off with the girl. Chasing him down, they shine flashlights in his eyes to stun him, take the girl back, and pour a ring of fuel around the startled beastie. Lighting the fuel, the fire burns all the oxygen away from around Octaman, knocking him unconscious. Okay, I feel it is necessary at this point to mention that, while fire could potentially have this effect if it were a massive blaze in an enclosed room, A TWO-INCH TALL RING OF FIRE IN WIDE OPEN OUTDOORS IS NOT GOING TO KNOCK A FUCKING GIANT OCTOPUS MAN (or anything else, for that matter) UNCONSICOUS! Rotenone would have made a lot more sense here, Harry. As long as you’re going to such great lengths to rip yourself off, you could have at least come up with an idea that wasn’t more retarded than the Special Olympics curling team.
So, after they lay a net over Octaman (you guys sure you don’t want to tie him up, or at least stake that net to the ground or something? No? You’re just gonna go with the net, then?), Obligatory Girl and Second Banana Scientist have that discussion that Kay and Second Banana Scientist have in Creature. Blah blah blah, Octaman escapes. You know the drill, people.
Next morning, the team decides to get the hell out of the swamp, but what’s keeping them out? Pop quiz, class. Okay, if you answered, “Octaman put a giant log in front of the RV”, you get a gold star. Davido, one of the villagers, decides to take off hunting Octaman. Once he finds the creature heading toward the RV, he runs back to warn the rest of the crew. That’s right, Octaman moves so fucking slow, Davido actually laps him to warn his friends. Unable to move the log, they hole up in a cave, where Octaman drops rocks in front of the entrance to block it. While the rest of the group decide to just give up and die without looking for another way out. Davido finds a second tunnel, leading them right back to the RV. Oh shit, but what about that log? Why, we’ll just throw the RV into reverse gear and go back the way we came! There was no danger after all! Hooray! Ooooh, I wanna punch this movie in the face really, really hard.
But wait, Octaman is hiding in the RV! Oh well, we’ll just fucking SHOOT HIM WITH THE GUNS WE’VE BEEN CARRYING THE WHOLE GODDAMN MOVIE! The fucking end, and good goddamn riddance.
This is not one of Rick Baker’s proudest moments. Octaman is less convincing an octopus monster than the Zygons, and he shambles around like a Romero zombie. I get the feeling that the reason we didn’t see any of the startlingly beautiful underwater footage we got in Creature is that if anyone tried to take this piece of crap monster suit into deep water, the rest of the movie’s budget would have been spent dredging the lake for a dead stunt man.
There are movies which people will refer to as messing with the laws of time. This is one such movie. There’s an assload of monster action – barely five minutes go by without a shot of Octaman doing something, even if it is just wandering around the swamp like he’s lost – and yet the character scenes all seem to drag on for at least an hour apiece. Seriously, the movie’s less than 80 minutes long, and I swear it’s at least two and a half hours. Find a copy yourself, check it out, and you’ll see what I mean. Few movies manage to be such a black hole of entertainment value (Brokeback Mountain springs immediately to mind), especially ones that are this intent on wringing every last cent from their monster, but there it is. Proof that, in the wrong hands, even a movie as awesome as Creature From the Black Lagoon can have all the devastating suckiness of a Ross Hagen picture.
The Moral of the Story: I’m actually so bored right now from having to think about
Octaman so much while writing this review, that I can’t even think of a good moral.
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