By Richard Harland Smith
Tentacles
Brief Synopsis
A giant octopus attacks a seaside resort.
Cast & Crew
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Ovidio G Assonitis
Director
Shelley Winters
Henry Fonda
Bo Hopkins
Alan Scharf
Delia Boccardo
Film Details
Also Known As
Tentacoli
MPAA Rating
Genre
Horror/Science-Fiction
Drama
Horror
Release Date
1977
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 42m
Sound
Mono
Color
Color (Technicolor)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio
2.35 : 1
Synopsis
Several people disappear from and at the sea. Their bodies are found gnawed to the skeleton, even the marrow is missing. The scientists have no idea which animal could do such things. Dr. Turner begins to suspect that the company which builds a tunnel beneath the bay might have poisoned the environment and caused an octopus to mutate to giant dimensions. Just at the same time a great sailing regatta with many children is started - among them Turner's nephew Tommy.
Director
Ovidio G Assonitis
Director
Cast
Shelley Winters
Henry Fonda
Bo Hopkins
Alan Scharf
Delia Boccardo
Rita Real
Claude Akins
John Huston
Kenneth Lundeen
Marc Fiorini
Helena Makela
Cesare Danova
Consolato Marciano
Ross Gordon
Roberto Poggi
Ronald Shapiro
Patrick Mulvihill
Sherry Buchanan
Giancarlo Nacinelli
Alan Boyd
Franco Diogene
Janet Raycraft
John White
Leonard Lightfoot
Alessandro Poggi
Joseph Johnson
William Van Raaphorst
Phillip Dallas
Joanne Van Raaphorst
Janet Myers
Krisha M Brekke
Crew
Ovidio G Assonitis
Producer
A Caponetto
Associate Producer
Steven Carabatsos
Screenplay
Tito Carpi
Screenplay
Stelvio Cipriani
Music Arranger
Stelvio Cipriani
Music
Angelo Curi
Editor
Enzo Doria
Producer
C Fat
Production Assistant
L F Greenwood
Assistant Director
N Hercules
Costumes
G Lawrence
Sound
G K Majors
Photography
Jerome Max
Screenplay
Sonia Molteni
Screenplay
Roberto D'ettore Piazzoli
Director Of Photography
S Rolls
Production Assistant
Peter Shepherd
Assistant Director
R Sorel
Assistant Director
M Spring
Art Director
Nestore Ungaro
Segment Director
Film Details
Also Known As
Tentacoli
MPAA Rating
Genre
Horror/Science-Fiction
Drama
Horror
Release Date
1977
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 42m
Sound
Mono
Color
Color (Technicolor)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio
2.35 : 1
Articles
Tentacles
The pending threat of litigation notwithstanding, Italy's film industry did big business during the 1970s by making (at times smudgy) carbon copies of such Hollywood hits as The French Connection (1971), The Exorcist (1973), and Jaws (1975). Egypt-born Italian film distributor turned filmmaker Ovidio G. Assonitis chased the success of his Exorcist clone Beyond the Door) with Italy's answer to Jaws, swapping out Steven Spielblerg's mechanical shark for a remote controlled octopus in Tentacles (1977). Taking a tip from the disaster film cycle that had produced The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974), Assonitis collected an all-star cast to bedazzle his tale of a coastal community plagued by a supersized cephalopod, his vacationing luminaries including Shelley Winters, John Huston, and Henry Fonda (whose footage was shot at his Beverly Hills home while the ailing actor recovered from open heart surgery). Appearing in his first lead role, as a marine biologist who becomes a reluctant and unlikely hero, is Sam Peckinpah trouper Bo Hopkins; despite prominent parts in such prestige films as John Schlesinger's Day of the Locust (1975) and Alan Parker's Midnight Express (1978), Hopkins returned to B-movies post-Tentacles and worked exhaustively in television, playing semi-regulars on such series as The Rockford Files and Dynasty. Named CEO of the prolific B-movie mill Cannon Film Group in 1990, Ovidio Assonitis sold to Universal Pictures the remake rights to Dino Risi's Italian language Profumo di donna (1974); as Scent of a Woman (1992), the remake won Al Pacino his first and only Academy Award.
By Richard Harland Smith
By Richard Harland Smith
Tentacles
The pending threat of litigation notwithstanding, Italy's film industry did big business during the 1970s by making (at times smudgy) carbon copies of such Hollywood hits as The French Connection (1971), The Exorcist (1973), and Jaws (1975). Egypt-born Italian film distributor turned filmmaker Ovidio G. Assonitis chased the success of his Exorcist clone Beyond the Door) with Italy's answer to Jaws, swapping out Steven Spielblerg's mechanical shark for a remote controlled octopus in Tentacles (1977). Taking a tip from the disaster film cycle that had produced The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974), Assonitis collected an all-star cast to bedazzle his tale of a coastal community plagued by a supersized cephalopod, his vacationing luminaries including Shelley Winters, John Huston, and Henry Fonda (whose footage was shot at his Beverly Hills home while the ailing actor recovered from open heart surgery). Appearing in his first lead role, as a marine biologist who becomes a reluctant and unlikely hero, is Sam Peckinpah trouper Bo Hopkins; despite prominent parts in such prestige films as John Schlesinger's Day of the Locust (1975) and Alan Parker's Midnight Express (1978), Hopkins returned to B-movies post-Tentacles and worked exhaustively in television, playing semi-regulars on such series as The Rockford Files and Dynasty. Named CEO of the prolific B-movie mill Cannon Film Group in 1990, Ovidio Assonitis sold to Universal Pictures the remake rights to Dino Risi's Italian language Profumo di donna (1974); as Scent of a Woman (1992), the remake won Al Pacino his first and only Academy Award.
By Richard Harland Smith
Quotes
Trivia
Miscellaneous Notes
Released in United States 1977
Technovision
English version available.
Released in United States 1977
