TENTACLES (1977) Blu-ray Review

Tentacles (1977) d. Ovidio G. Assonitis (Italy/USA)

A drunk old fisherman and a 10-month-old infant both go mysteriously missing in separate incidents in the same week near Solana Beach, a seaside tourist community, later turning up completely drained of fluids (including the bone marrow). Investigative reporter Ned Turner (John Huston) smells a story in the offing, suspecting a connection to moneybags developer Mr. Whitehead (Henry Fonda) and his Trojan Construction company’s underwater tunnel project off the coast. In an effort to find out what could be causing the deaths, Turner seeks out the assistance of renowned marine biologist Will Gleason (Bo Hopkins), presently stationed at a Sea World-type outfit training killer whales. Gleason theorizes that it could be a giant octopus, up in arms (cue rimshot) over Trojan’s disturbance of the ocean floor fauna. But will they be able to stop the grotesque grabber before the summer’s big tourist event (a massive sailboat race) or will the suckers get suckered?

UNCLE SAM (1996) movie review

Uncle Sam (1996) d. Lustig, William

After his body is returned home, KIA Desert Storm vet Sam Harper (David Shark Fralick) rises from his coffin confines on July 4th to wage war against the citizens of his American-as-apple-pie hometown, to the disbelief of his idolizing nephew Christopher Ogden. Turns out “Uncle Sam” wasn’t such a good guy in life, and in his inexplicably resurrected form, he’s twice as nasty, bumping off former friends and neighbors right and left wearing a – you guessed it – red, white and blue top-hat-and-white-goateed costume.

Working from a script by noted rabble-rouser Larry Cohen, Lustig paints a cartoonish and violent paean to the supernatural slasher subgenre, with all the nutritional value and culinary daring of a cinematic cheese dog on a stick. Wants to be good, dumb fun, but mostly just ends up being dumb and dull, despite the game efforts of Isaac Hayes, Timothy Bottoms, Bo Hopkins, and Robert Forster.