When I was seven or eight years old I dug an old VHS tape out of the back of my father's video collection. VHS was becoming mainstream back then and my father was a fanatic for building recording as much as he could. One tape in particular was labeled "Octaman Halloween movie," and I couldn't resist to pop it in the flip top VCR.
I was little, and like all kids scared easily. This movie didn't scare me as much as it amused me. It must have been envisioned by a child, then written and produced by his second grade buddies. Nevertheless, I watched "Octaman" all the way through and still have the tape. The movie itself is ridiculous in plot, hopelessly acted and shoddily realized. Had Tod Browning or James Whale directed this mess I'd still be uncertain it could have been anything but what it is... the epitome of a B movie crap. But it's entertaining crap for the simplest reasons. We know that these characters: the goofy scientist, the heroic and handsome group leader, the gun toting marlboro man, and of course the obligatory "red crew member" guy will come face with this thing and probably, hopefully die.
This is schlocky entertainment at its worst and seems to break just about every law of nature I've come to understand. Would atomic energy really make such a gross deformity of a single creature of a species that doesn't exist in the everglades, or southwest, or wherever they filmed this? If so, why does this thing walk on land? Why is it apparently carnivorous and so hostile? Is this some kind of genetic experiment gone wrong, a la Doctor Moreau? Movies like this never make any real attempt to answer these questions, and that's what earns them a B status.
Still, I have a small nook of appreciation for "Octaman" as terrible as it is (and so terrible it's not even funny) because I found it amusing when I was just a little kid searching through my father's VHS collection wondering what makes a movie good, and what makes a movie bad. I found the latter, and have come to understand the difference.
I was little, and like all kids scared easily. This movie didn't scare me as much as it amused me. It must have been envisioned by a child, then written and produced by his second grade buddies. Nevertheless, I watched "Octaman" all the way through and still have the tape. The movie itself is ridiculous in plot, hopelessly acted and shoddily realized. Had Tod Browning or James Whale directed this mess I'd still be uncertain it could have been anything but what it is... the epitome of a B movie crap. But it's entertaining crap for the simplest reasons. We know that these characters: the goofy scientist, the heroic and handsome group leader, the gun toting marlboro man, and of course the obligatory "red crew member" guy will come face with this thing and probably, hopefully die.
This is schlocky entertainment at its worst and seems to break just about every law of nature I've come to understand. Would atomic energy really make such a gross deformity of a single creature of a species that doesn't exist in the everglades, or southwest, or wherever they filmed this? If so, why does this thing walk on land? Why is it apparently carnivorous and so hostile? Is this some kind of genetic experiment gone wrong, a la Doctor Moreau? Movies like this never make any real attempt to answer these questions, and that's what earns them a B status.
Still, I have a small nook of appreciation for "Octaman" as terrible as it is (and so terrible it's not even funny) because I found it amusing when I was just a little kid searching through my father's VHS collection wondering what makes a movie good, and what makes a movie bad. I found the latter, and have come to understand the difference.