Octaman

1976 movie with a title you have to put [sic] after when typing

Rating: 2/20

Plot: Scientists in Mexico discover half-people/half-octopi and piss one of them off. It responds in the only way an octaman [sic] knows how--tentacle slapping.

"How can I believe that there's a creature with arms of a sea creature that walks like a man?"

See, in Octaman, they don't make you wait to see the monster like in a lot of 70's B-monster-flicks. No, the guy in the rubber suit is all over this one, so the audience gets to be disappointed within the first ten minutes of the movie. I imagine some movie theaters would even give a person his money back within the first ten minutes of the movie, right? I thought I recognized the director's name--Harry Essex. He seems to have had a nice Hollywood writing career, but didn't direct very much. Octaman, as you'd guess from its quality, is the last movie he was allowed to direct. There's a David Essex acting in this movie, and this is his only movie credit. I'm just going to imagine that this entire movie was made because it was David's dream of being in a movie and Harry wanted to help him out. I really liked during the opening credits when it said that the movie, which is called Octaman, is "starring The Octaman." The rest of this thing doesn't disappoint. You get a liberal use of what I imagine was referred to as Octa-cam, lots of really awkward shifts to found footage, day-night continuity errors galore, and what might be the worst special effect featuring an octopus baby ever--the moving of an octababy that was actually Rick Baker's work. I'm sure it's not something he includes on his resume. There's a colorful crew of characters including some Mexicans who sing the exact two songs that you'd have them sing if you didn't know anything about Mexico but wanted your characters to seem Mexican. Go ahead and take a guess at the two songs they sit around and sing. I'll give you some time to think about it. Did you guess? You're right! "Cielito Lindo" (Aye-yi-yi-yi) and "Jarabe Tapatio" (The Mexican Hat Dance song). My favorite character might be Fake Cowboy #3 though, a guy who talks about King Kong as if nobody would have ever heard of that movie ever. Of course, with any monster movie, the real fun is watching the monster wreak havoc on its victims, and you get plenty of that here. Well, if you call flailing around action. And then there's a scene in which the titular beasts both slaps and squeezes, and it's double the mayhem. My favorite scene, and a scene that has to be the best use of a dummy I've seen in a long time, is when the man in the rubber suit throws a guy off a cliff after slapping his eye halfway out. But that's not just a flash in the pan bit of genius. You get Ernest P. Worrell giving a speech about environmental responsibility and saying cool things like "I don't savvy all that talk." Twice. Essex must have really been proud of that line. There's also a really cool scene where a guy is carving a little figurine out of a chunk of wood. Another character says, "You have talent, Evido," probably because they're all waiting around for the monster to attack again and have nothing else to talk about. But you have to see the carving that this guy made. A two-year-old with a knife could make what Evido did. But oh, that monster. See, a lesser director would realize that his monster looks completely ridiculous and that people are going to laugh and make sure to not include too many scenes with it, all in the name of building suspense or something. Not Harry Essex. Here's a guy who understands the potential for comedy and includes the Octaman in nearly every scene. You get to see him fight an alligator or crocodile or whatever the hell they have in Mexico, and you get a terrific scene where he slaps an RV and makes it bleed. There's also this inexplicable moment where he walks past a half-decayed cat. Just a terrifying monster. Well, until you realize that all you have to do to save yourself from his vengeance is yell "Back! Back!" Highly recommended if you enjoy stupid crap.