Review of Octaman (1971) by Brian S — 30 Jan 2011

If you like films directed by Roger Corman, you're gonna love this one. Octaman is a Mexican radioactive mutant played by a guy in a rubber suit. When a group of scientist start collecting his offspring -- little rubber octopi with red-in-green cat eyes dragged through the grass on strings and otherwise incapable of movement -- Octaman starts attacking. But what he really wants is to kidnap a rather haggard-looking female Mexican scientist, because he needs a mate. So, where did the offspring come from? Maybe Octaman is really Octomom. That's only one question about this flick. Here are some others:

1. Why does it randomly change from day to night in Mexico? Apparently, there's a great deal of this going on down there. Day and night shift back and forth without warning in the middle of scenes. We must do something to stabilize the rotation of Mexico!

2. Couldn't they find an actual Mexican actor to play the part of Mexican guide Davido? Instead, they got some random hippie seems about as Mexican as Garrison Keillor. Listening to his accent change between a terrible Mexican and clearly American one is a wonderful thing, but his improvised whistling of The Mexican Hat Dance at strange times truly seals the deal.

3. If you stand in the middle of a 15'-wide circle of foot-high flames, do you really pass out due to lack of oxygen? Octamen do.

4. If you throw a net over something and don't tie down the net, should you really expect that the thing you've netted will be unable to move?

Like any good scientific expedition, the one in Octaman raises more questions than it answers. That's good science for ya! And watch for the mismatched stock footage that changes a Mexican lakefront into a Florida bayou, a little creek into whitewater rapids, and the bottom of a lake into a wondrously colorful coral reef!

Octaman is awful film-making at its finest. Somewhat reminiscent of Roger Corman's "Creature from the Haunted Sea," but with dialogue that could have been penned by Ed Wood (e.g., "It's amazing what the human body can do in the face of survival!"), this classic dreck-flick is sure to please the most discriminating connoisseur of bottom-of-the-barrel 1970's sci-fi creature features. Viva la rubber octopus-man!