Octaman

OCTAMAN concerns an expedition to "a small Latin American fishing community", to investigate high radiation levels. After the team discovers an almost real-looking, rubber octopus, the "specimen" is tossed in a bucket for safekeeping. This causes the even less realistic, titular terror to lumber forth to seek revenge. Horror, death, and ecological ballyhoo commence.

This infamous piece of ultra-schlock cinema is a cavalcade of sleepy non-actors reciting absurd dialogue, seemingly learned while they were filming. Of course, the real "star" is the 8' tall mound of silicone itself. To be honest, the costume, designed by Rick Baker, would have been far less of an embarrassment had it been used only sparingly, filmed only in the dark, and / or from a great distance. Alas, the pitiful creature is in nearly every scene, its extra arms flapping lifelessly as it staggers about.

Anyone who can recall the old Squiddly Diddly cartoons will notice the uncanny resemblance here.

Still, as ridiculous as it is, this movie is a lot of fun to watch!...

Directed by Harry Essex, co-scriptwriter of '50s Universal classic Creature From The Black Lagoon, '70s drive-in eco-horror Octaman is a lesson in how not to make a monster movie. Within seconds, Essex has revealed his tentacled titular creature in all of its rubbery glory -- a laughable man-in-a-suit creation that walks stiffly whilst flailing its flaccid limbs, it's completely immobile face in a constant look of surprise, as though it's just sat on a cactus (it does live in Mexico, after all!).

Having provided viewers with a good laugh at the expense of its monster, Octaman has little else to give, the remainder of the film consisting of countless encounters between a plucky band of marine biologists and the manky mollusc man, none of which are all that thrilling. In true movie monster fashion, the creature attacks the men, but carries off the film's only female (Pier Angeli), not once but twice, making it a lot like the Creature From the Black Lagoon - in spirit, at least.

With repetitive, dreadfully dull action, terrible performances, and a truly pathetic monster, Octaman is totally inept in almost every way imaginable, BUT it's still essential viewing for avid fans of practical special effects, the film being the first paid gig for future seven-time Oscar winner, make-up legend Rick Baker. Hard to believe that in the short space of one decade he went from A Mutant Octopus in Latin America to An American Werewolf in London.

2/10. Amazingly, this is not Harry Essex's worst film: his next movie, The Cremators, is a steaming 1/10 pile of garbage.

'Octaman' is a pretty nice monster movie from early 70's and includes one of the sweetest rubber costumes in the whole movie history. Created by Sixth time Oscar award winner special effects guru Rick Baker ('Gorillas in the Mist)creature is a half man half octopus mutant, who terrorizes people in a small Mexican village. A group of scientists tries to catch the creature but Octaman seems to be much smarter than he looks. Some people will die and some will survive to stand up in the final battle against the powerful freak of nature. To be honest with you - this movie isn't good. Actually it's hilariously bad, laughable flick with bad acting and totally lack of gore. The music is boring as hell and cinematography for sure isn't the first rate,but in overall 'Octaman' is a cult classic of bad movies and as I said it has one of the greatest costumes in movie history to date. Strong tentacles and scary red eyes -that's the Octaman device. Absolutely must see for monster movies fans! It definitively needs a proper DVD release in a good quality and with some extras. 6 out 10 for this cult trash.

In reality, It will bore you to death and make you cry!!! A pathetic 50's style rubber monster that appears as if he will fall over at any moment. The acting is bad, the effects are bad (Poor Rick Baker), the photography is terrible (It appears as though some scenes were filmed with the lens cap on!!!) and Harry Essex has got to be the most incompetent director ever!!!!

I loved every minute of it!

Far-out retread into "Creature from the Black Lagoon" territory, this time with a giant rubber octopus-man emerging from a river to terrorize a hapless film crew--err, scientific expedition. It's no coincidence that the screenplay was done by the same guy who wrote the original "...Black Lagoon", the whole movie is a throwback to 50s sci-fi, when radiation had the strange ability to instantly send ordinary creatures through mutations that would normally take about seventeen generations to accomplish.

"Octaman" is in that same shameless spirit, this time molding the aesthetic into a distinctly 70s-era production. The results are fairly laughable, although that may have been what the filmmakers were intending all along. The "octaman" (and his ordinary-sized cohorts) simply must be seen to be (dis)believed. Of course nobody thought this movie was going to be brilliant when it was made, it was produced in an era when cheapie horror films were readily produced as part of the drive-in/grindhouse circuit. "Octaman" fits that bill quite nicely, and only bogs down in the talky sections of the film. As long as the rubber arms are a-wavin', it's a real hoot.