Tentacles (film)

Tentacles
File:Tentacles (film).jpg French film poster
Directed by	Ovidio G. Assonitis (as Oliver Hellman)
Produced by	Ovidio G. Assonitis Enzo Doria
Written by	Steven W. Carabatsos Tito Carpi Jerome Max Sonia Molteni
Starring	John Huston Shelley Winters Bo Hopkins Henry Fonda
Music by	Stelvio Cipriani
Cinematography	Roberto D'Ettorre Piazzoli
Edited by	Angelo Curi
Production company	American International Pictures Esse Ci Cinematografica Samuel Z. Arkoff
Distributed by	American International Pictures
Release dates	25 February 1977
Running time	90 minutes
Country	Italy United States
Language	English
Budget	$750,000
Box office	$3,000,000

Tentacles (Italian title: Tentacoli) is a 1977 Italian-American horror film directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis and starring John Huston, Shelley Winters, Bo Hopkins and Henry Fonda. Although the film was intended to cash in on the success of Jaws, Tentacles also bears numerous resemblances to the 1955 science fiction horror film It Came from Beneath the Sea.

Plot

Ocean Beach, a seaside tourist resort, has come under attack by a giant octopus, which captures and devours human swimmers and boaters, picking the skeletons clean of flesh and bone marrow. Marine expert Will Gleason (Hopkins) and crusading newspaper reporter Ned Turner (Huston) suspect the construction of an underwater tunnel by the Trojan company, owned by Mr. Whitehead (Fonda). Trojan has been using radio signals that have been "above regulated levels", somehow maddening the octopus and causing it to attack human beings. In the end, the octopus is killed by Gleason's pair of killer whales.

Cast

• John Huston as Ned Turner
• Shelley Winters as Tillie Turner
• Bo Hopkins as Will Gleason
• Henry Fonda as Mr. Whitehead, President of Trojan Construction
• Delia Boccardo as Vicky Gleason
• Cesare Danova as John Corey
• Claude Akins as Sheriff Robards
• Alan Boyd as Mike
• Sherry Buchanan as Judy
• Franco Diogene as Chuck
• Marc Fiorini as Don
• Helena Mäkelä as Jane's Mother
• 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 capitalize on the success of Steven Spielberg's Jaws.

The film's score was done by Italian composer Stelvio Cipriani, who scored the similarly Jaws-inspired films The Great Alligator and Piranha II: The Spawning around the same time. He later recycled many of the cues from Tentacles in his later score for Concorde Affaire '79.

Release

It was released theatrically in the United States 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 with Empire of the Ants.

Remake

Monster is a similar film produced by The Asylum in 2008.

External links

• Tentacles at IMDb