Chad

Undeadcow

Watched Octaman and that creature is awesome! The movie is cheesy but fun and doesn't waste any time getting to the point, good bad movie with nice pacing. The night time swamp scenes were effective. After this I ended up watching an evil fish marathon and I really think that's a subgenre that needs more attention (evil fish and ecological horror both).

rabidgoatboy

Is Octaman on DVD in the US?

Undeadcow

No, there's a listing on Amazon.com but I doubt it's an official/quality release. Octaman is avaliable on Netflix streaming if you're a member or on VHS if you can find it.

Trevor

Definitely the worst film I've seen this week, and probably year or even decade. But makes it in to the so-bad-its-good category for me I think. Didn't see any acting that was better than competent, the day-night-day scenes were fun, much of the logic and serious dialogue made me laugh out loud.

Sad that the writer of CftBL resorted to this.

Dick Laurent

This is a great example of why I love this challenge so much. I would never have checked this out without a suggestion. Loved it!

I thought the creature was delightfully lame, and the actors played it so serious, which made it almost believable. Well, maybe less than almost.

The best part: "Octaman" is listed as an actor in the opening credits.

Trevor

My OCD compels me to mention that this film may fit today's theme, if we think of the creature as a mom, but that the later subset choice Flowers in the Attic would have worked even better with today's theme.

Not a knock of course Chad, you do an obscene amount of volunteer work putting all this together.

Melmoth

I had a hard time getting through this one. Dull story, poor acting and the monster scenes weren't very exciting. The only thing I got out of it was viewing Rick Baker's first film credit.

rbrown498

If I had seen this when it was first released (and I was nine years old), this would probably be one of my favorites. As it stands, however, I saw this stinker for the first time tonight. One of the rules for a successful horror movie is that you don't show your monster too soon or too often, as everything that follows that first reveal is anticlimactic. Harry Essex, the writer, producer, and director of Octaman, had apparently not heard of that dictum at the time he shot this film, as the creature is revealed during the main credits. Essex then goes on to keep the monster on the screen in full view for at least half of the film's running time. I can only guess that he either loved the Octaman suit a whole lot, or he wanted to get his money's worth of monster suit up on the screen...or both. No matter his reasons, the Octaman is indeed on display throughout the entire film, and to make REALLY sure that we see the suit, Essex shoots the majority of the monster scenes IN BROAD DAYLIGHT. So, while the nine-year-old still inside me was pleased with the sheer amount of monster footage in the film, the adult in me ached for a little restraint, a little mystery.

Two more quick notes: 1) Harry Essex is perhaps best known for writing Universal's duo of 3D genre pictures in the 50s, It Came from Outer Space and The Creature from the Black Lagoon. If you're able to stay awake during Octaman, you may notice that its plot follows that of The Creature from the Black Lagoon fairly closely, but with no harpoons or Julie Adams. 2) Having watched It's Alive only last night, I noticed that the mutant baby in that film and the Octaman both have very similar features (bulging, veiny forehead and big cat eyes). Turns out that Rick Baker designed both monsters. There's definitely a family resemblance going on there.

And one last thing (I'm beginning to sound like Columbo): I watched Octaman on Netflix streaming, and the quality was fairly poor. After the great experience with Dead Snow, it was a bit of a letdown.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

In it's defense, it doesn't have a DVD release and it's hard to find a legit copy of.

That's why I picked it. The fact that Netflix managed to get this available as an instant stream completely surprised me, so I wanted to share this funny turd with everyone else. Odds are they would never have seen it otherwise.

If you can get into a MST3K mood before watching it, there should be some enjoyment out of it.

Trevor

Whew! You've restored my feeling that you're sane.

And thanks for the reminder to dig out three horror MST3K/RT/CT releases for my monthly goal.

cproaps

I think my one regret in life may be that I CAN'T see Crow and Tom Servo rip into this one. If it were 1951 and not 1971 I'd cut it some slack. But it's still better than Jar Jar!

Spiderbite

I gotta disagree with that. I watched it (or tried to) today and was amazed the picture quality looked so good. The picture of quite clear for a film with no budget for 1971.

Another disagreement for me. There was nothing to recommend about this film. It had no charm whatsoever. It was like the bastard child of Ed Wood and Sid & Marty Krofft but without the fun. No nudity or sex and very little gore. Poor acting with dull dialogue. I do love movies that can be considered "so bad it's good" but this definitely wasn't one of them.

Since I was multi-quoting I had to at least list a comment I agreed with. I felt the same way. It felt like a monster movie that might have worked in the early 50's but by '71, audiences, even kid audiences, were way past crap like this.

My rating: * out of *****

Trevor

Yeah, I admit that I only added that line because I really like MP and wanted to say something vaguely positive.

Now that he's admitted his feelings for it, I can retract that comment. It could be fun with a good riff track though. Would love to see Cinematic Titanic tackle this one.

Worst film of the month until I made the mistake of watching a Chris Seaver film last night.