I see this one has a very low score on IMDB, but I have to say it was not all that bad. Considering the budget was only 750,000 I thought they did a rather good job. If they had cut the run time by taking out some of the pointless plot points they interjected it would have helped, but overall it had its moments. Not to say it was all that good, but it was not super horrible either. As far as Jaws ripoffs though, it takes a back seat to Piranha which I thought had the superior kills and story even. This one kind of never really explains why a giant killer octopus just appears and starts killing.
The story has a giant octopus terrorizing the ocean. We also have shady business mean running a special thing to dig or something that seems completely irrelevant to the plot as does the strange reporter who is the brother to the Shelly Winters character. Seriously, this whole plot point leads nowhere in particular and is obvious padding. Meanwhile, the octopus kills and soon a man who trains killer whales decides to unleash his two buddies to take care of the octopus who is a pus when those whales get a hold of him!
The budget could have used an extra 250,000 so that we could have had more octopus terror rather than evil business executive getting berated by the older businessman. At times one forgets they are watching a film about a giant octopus. There are a couple of nice attacks in this one, but just needed more tentacles and less, "I need you to tell me everything about the operation that is vague!" The boat race though is very much like the one scene in Jaws II which would come out a year later and even involved a kid in danger just like that film.
So, it was not terrible and certainly entertaining in its own little way. Take out some of the padding and add another attack or two and the film would have been a lot better. It also could have benefited from an R rating so that the deaths could be a bit more gruesome which is another reason I feel Piranha shines brighter than this film. You are not going to outdo Jaws in terms of story or character, but you can make your film super gory making it more appealing to the horror set that loved cheesy movies like that!
The story has a giant octopus terrorizing the ocean. We also have shady business mean running a special thing to dig or something that seems completely irrelevant to the plot as does the strange reporter who is the brother to the Shelly Winters character. Seriously, this whole plot point leads nowhere in particular and is obvious padding. Meanwhile, the octopus kills and soon a man who trains killer whales decides to unleash his two buddies to take care of the octopus who is a pus when those whales get a hold of him!
The budget could have used an extra 250,000 so that we could have had more octopus terror rather than evil business executive getting berated by the older businessman. At times one forgets they are watching a film about a giant octopus. There are a couple of nice attacks in this one, but just needed more tentacles and less, "I need you to tell me everything about the operation that is vague!" The boat race though is very much like the one scene in Jaws II which would come out a year later and even involved a kid in danger just like that film.
So, it was not terrible and certainly entertaining in its own little way. Take out some of the padding and add another attack or two and the film would have been a lot better. It also could have benefited from an R rating so that the deaths could be a bit more gruesome which is another reason I feel Piranha shines brighter than this film. You are not going to outdo Jaws in terms of story or character, but you can make your film super gory making it more appealing to the horror set that loved cheesy movies like that!