Tentacles (film)
Encyclopedia
Tentacles is a 1977
Italian
-American
horror film
directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis
and starring John Huston
and Shelley Winters
.
, which captures human swimmers and picks clean the skeletons of flesh and bone marrow. The attacks, which gradually increase in number as time passes, threaten to scare away the 10,000 tourists who visit Ocean Beach each summer.
The characters determine that the excavation of an underwater tunnel has caused the giant octopus to rampage; the company, owned by Mr. Whitehead (Henry Fonda
), has been using radio signals that have been "above regulated levels", and these have somehow enraged the octopus and caused it to attack human beings.
In the end, the Octopus is killed by the killer whales when the main character goes out to sea in a sailing yacht, with the killer whales in tow.
's Jaws
.
by American International Pictures
on 15 June 1977.
The film was released on DVD
by MGM in 2005 as part of their Midnite Movies
series. The disc was a double feature release, pairing the film alongside Empire of the Ants
.
a similar film produced by The Asylum
in 2008
1977 in film
The year 1977 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*In the Academy Awards, Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway and Beatrice Straight win Best Actor and Actress and Supporting Actress awards for Network....
Italian
Cinema of Italy
The history of Italian cinema began just a few months after the Lumière brothers had patented their Cinematographe, when Pope Leo XIII was filmed for a few seconds in the act of blessing the camera.-Early years:...
-American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis
Ovidio G. Assonitis
Ovidio Assonitis is an independent film producer and businessman with over 35 years of experience in the entertainment industry.- Biography :...
and starring John Huston
John Huston
John Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...
and Shelley Winters
Shelley Winters
Shelley Winters was an American actress who appeared in dozens of films, as well as on stage and television; her career spanned over 50 years until her death in 2006...
.
Plot
The tourist spot Ocean Beach has come under attack by a giant octopusGigantic octopus
An unknown species of gigantic octopus has been hypothesised as a source of reports of sea monsters such as the lusca and the kraken as well as the source of some of the carcasses of unidentified origin known as globsters like the St. Augustine Monster. The species that the St...
, which captures human swimmers and picks clean the skeletons of flesh and bone marrow. The attacks, which gradually increase in number as time passes, threaten to scare away the 10,000 tourists who visit Ocean Beach each summer.
The characters determine that the excavation of an underwater tunnel has caused the giant octopus to rampage; the company, owned by Mr. Whitehead (Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
), has been using radio signals that have been "above regulated levels", and these have somehow enraged the octopus and caused it to attack human beings.
In the end, the Octopus is killed by the killer whales when the main character goes out to sea in a sailing yacht, with the killer whales in tow.
Cast
- John HustonJohn HustonJohn Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...
as Ned Turner - Shelley WintersShelley WintersShelley Winters was an American actress who appeared in dozens of films, as well as on stage and television; her career spanned over 50 years until her death in 2006...
as Tillie Turner - Bo HopkinsBo HopkinsBo Hopkins is an American actor.-Career:Hopkins has appeared in more than one hundred film and television roles in a career of more than forty years, including The Bridge at Remagen, The Wild Bunch, The Getaway, American Graffiti, White Lightning, Radioland Murders, The Killer Elite, Midnight...
as Will Gleason - Henry FondaHenry FondaHenry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
as Mr. Whitehead, President of Trojan Construction - Delia Boccardo as Vicky Gleason
- Cesare DanovaCesare DanovaCesare Danova was a television and screen actor. Born as Cesare Deitinger in Bergamo, Italy to an Austrian father and an Italian mother, he adopted Danova as his stage name after becoming an actor in Rome at the end of World War II. He emigrated to the United States in the 1950s to make the film...
as John Corey - Alan Boyd as Mike
- Sherry Buchanan as Judy
- Franco Diogene as Chuck
- Marc Fiorini as Don
- Helena Mäkelä as Jane's Mother
- Claude AkinsClaude AkinsClaude Marion Akins was an American actor with a long career on stage, screen and television.Powerful in appearance and voice, Akins could be counted on to play the clever tough guy, on the side of good or bad, in movies and television. He is best remembered as Sheriff Lobo in the 1970s TV series...
as Sheriff Robards - Alessandro Poggi
- Roberto Poggi
- Giancarlo Nacinelli
- Consolato Marciano
- Philip Dallas
- Leonard Lightfoot
- John White
- William Van Raaphorst
- Joanne Van Raaphorst
- Patrick Mulvihill
- Janet Myers
- Kristin M. Brekke
- Janet Raycraft
- Kenneth Lundeen
- Rita Real
- Alan Scharf
- Ross Gordon
- Ron Shapiro
- Joseph Johnson
- George Montage as Deputy Jacobson
Production
The film was produced to capitalise on the success of Steven SpielbergSteven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
's Jaws
Jaws (film)
Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...
.
Release
It was released theatrically in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
by American International Pictures
American International Pictures
American International Pictures was a film production company formed in April 1956 from American Releasing Corporation by James H. Nicholson, former Sales Manager of Realart Pictures, and Samuel Z. Arkoff, an entertainment lawyer...
on 15 June 1977.
The film was released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
by MGM in 2005 as part of their Midnite Movies
Midnite Movies
Midnite Movies is a line of B movies released first on VHS then on DVD by MGM Home Entertainment then later Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. The line was begun by MGM in March 2001 following its acquisition of Orion Pictures, which bought out Filmways, Inc., the owner of American International...
series. The disc was a double feature release, pairing the film alongside Empire of the Ants
Empire of the Ants (film)
Empire of the Ants is a 1977 science fiction horror film by Bert I. Gordon. Based very loosely on Empire of the Ants by H.G. Wells, the film involves a group of prospective land buyers led by a land developer, pitted against giant, mutated ants.-Plot:...
.
Remake
MonsterMonster (2008 film)
Monster is a 2008 direct-to-DVD monster film produced by American studio The Asylum, written and directed by Erik Estenberg.The film is an Asylum mockbuster created to capitalise on the release of Cloverfield. It was released direct-to-DVD on January 15, 2008...
a similar film produced by The Asylum
The Asylum
The Asylum is an American film studio and distributor which focuses on producing low-budget, usually direct-to-video productions. The studio has produced titles that capitalize on productions by major studios; these titles have been dubbed "mockbusters" by the press.-History:The Asylum was founded...
in 2008
2008 in film
This is a list of all major films made in 2008.-Highest-grossing films:Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top grossing films that were first released in the USA in 2008...