What happens when you combine writing and direction by the man who wrote the screenplays for Creature from the Black Lagoon, and It Came from Outer Space with the stars of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and This Island Earth? You get crap in the form of Octaman (1971) in which vague science and made up folklore come together to deliver a monstrous humanoid octopus set upon killing off the entire cast.
Did I think this movie was going to be a gem? No. I'd caught enough of it on television years ago to know that it was going to be a turd. The screenplay, including the dialogue was earnest, yet dreadful, a problem enhanced by the film being shot mostly silent with the dialogue dubbed in later. The special effects consisting of a mutant baby octopus being pulled acrid the ground with string and an obvious man in a monster suit designed and built by Rick Baker and Doug Beswick did not impress, though Octaman himself had a bit of charm as far as obvious, inexpressive rubber suit monsters go. Sadly, the suit performer was no Doug Jones, simply walking slowly enough so as not to trip, and flapping his arms on occasion.
That said, where other movies of this budget would have done their best to show as little of the monster as possible, until the end, here you get a good look at it before the opening credits and it shows up quite often grabbing quite a bit of screen time away from the dull interactions between the generic character types.
As bad as it was, Octaman was still fairly entertaining and would be perfect on a drive-in screen, or really late at night, or on a rainy Saturday afternoon.
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