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Showing posts from November, 2015

TSFO Octopus Arm: Monster from the Ocean Floor (1954)

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Monster from the Ocean Floor   (1954) Dir.: Wyott Ordung TC4P Rating: 4/9 Creatures: shark, octopus, and a monstrous octopus-like thing with a glowing eye. Monsters, nuclear waste, girls in trouble, sharks... some of the essential elements of low-budget "B" movie thrills back in the 1950s. It helps even more if the girl is in a swimsuit and is wet half of the film, and if the monster is a giant octopus of some indeterminate species, and if the giant octopus has a single eye the size of a cargo hatch and the creature glows due to possible exposure to nuclear testing. And, oh yeah, sharks... Roger Corman had all of these elements down already in 1954 in his very first full producing credit,  Monster from the Ocean Floor . The film is clearly influenced by the previous year's big monster hit,  The Creature from the Black Lagoon , and Corman and first-time director Wyott Ordung seem to be taking great pains to try and replicate the thrilling underwater sequences that mad