Tentacles
Blu-ray
Director: Ovidio G. Assonitis
Writers: Steven Carabatsos, Tito Carpi, Jerome Max
Cast: John Huston, Shelley Winters, Bo Hopkins, Henry Fonda
Scream Factory
Rated PG | 100 Minutes
Release Date: June 16, 2015

Directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis (Beyond the Door), 1977’s Tentacles is a Jaws rip-off about a seaside tourist resort under attack by a giant octopus.

John Huston, Shelley Winters, Bo Hopkins, and Henry Fonda are tasked with keeping the massive marine menace from turning their sleepy hamlet into an all-you-can-eat buffet.

It all begins when marine expert Will Gleason (Hopkins) and reporter Ned Turner (Huston) investigate the construction of an underwater tunnel by the Trojan company, owned by Mr. Whitehead (Fonda). Trojan has been using unregulated radio signals, which as we all learned in elementary school, can cause extreme irritability in giant octopi.

The Visitor
Director: Giulio Paradisi
Cast: John Huston, Mel Ferrer, Glenn Ford, Lance Henriksen, Franco Nero, Sam Peckinpah, Joanne Nail, Paige Conner
Drafthouse Films
Rated R | 101 Minutes
Release Date: November 22, 2013

Directed by Giulio Paradisi, 1979’s The Visitor stars legendary Hollywood director/actor John Huston (The Maltese Falcon; Treasure Of The Sierra Madre) as an intergalactic warrior who joins a cosmic Christ figure (Franco Nero) in battle against a demonic 8-year-old girl and her pet hawk.

Restored and presented uncut for the first time ever in the U.S. by Drafthouse Films, The Visitor is a ’70s psychedelic mindwarp complete with vicious bird attacks, multi-dimensional warfare and pre-adolescent profanity. Somewhere between Hell, the darkest reaches of the universe, and Atlanta, GA, the fate of the cosmos hangs in the balance.

The Visitor fuses elements of The Omen, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, The Birds, Rosemary’s Baby, The Fury, and even Star Wars, creating the most ambitious, insane film you’ve ever seen. Basically, Space Jesus sends an emissary named Jerzy (Huston) to Earth to capture Katy (Paige Conner), a little girl with superhuman abilities. Meanwhile, evil space aliens are trying to get Katy’s mother (Joanne Nail) pregnant so that she will give birth to the antichrist, another super-kid they can use to destroy the human race.