Finally, a Movie I Can't Find Much Good In

I am amazed, usually when I watch something...even if its not something that I ever feel like watching again...I can usually find some kind words or a good part or two.  However, last night I caught one on Youtube that really was bad...and not in the good way (unless you're already drunk with some friends I suppose...but if you're already that drunk you'd probably be falling asleep).  I felt like a bad movie could possibly cheer me up, since I was rather blah yesterday, but alas...no.  Well, I might as well dive in...talking about a bad movie is like ripping off a Band-Aid...best to just do it quick and get it over with.  So lets look at the 1971 stinker, Octaman.

A scientific expedition in Mexico discovers several unusual baby octopus specimens in the radiation contaminated water nearby.  They can't help noticing that it has eyes in front, like a human, and that it is larger than a normal octopus (yet for some reason, the requisite hot foreign girl keeps calling it a squid).  When they capture several of the critters their half-man/half-octopus parent appears to terrorize the hapless scientists.  Soon they are in a life and death struggle with a creature that can squeeze them dead and suck them dry.  Yep...that's about it.  Did I mention this film was shown as "The Attack of the Octopus People" in Gremlins 2: The New Batch.

That last fact was why I sought out this turkey...that and I've been watching bad trailers for terrible 'grindhouse' style films in anticipation of Tuesday's release of the theatrical cut of Grindhouse on Blu-ray.  I saw that this was placed on Youtube and I couldn't sleep last night so I decided to watch it.  I never thought I would see a movie from the 70s that actually looked worse than the monster movies of the 50s...but here it is.  This is even below the quality of one Roger Corman, and he's the king of 'cheap' and 'bad'.  I was amused by some of the scenes, but in the wrong way.  I also found its thin plot incredibly hard to follow due to lousy line delivery and poor editing.  Flashbacks are thrown in without warning, characters are added and removed at the director's whimsy, and the soundtrack is...well, about what you expect, but it sure doesn't help the film.  I would say avoid this at all costs, but somethings are so bad that they have to be seen so that we can learn from the mistakes of the past.  Plus, that monster suit is great proof that even great FX men can crap out some garbage (the suit was created by the legendary Rick Baker of Men in Black).  Peeeeeewwww, I'm gonna cover something much better next time.

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