Somewhere under the murky waters of New York's East River is a very large, very hungry octopus that, under the cover of night, slides near the shore and along side unsuspecting small boats in order to drag human prey into its gaping maw. Few take the threat seriously, including the incredulous mayor (Duncan Fraser) who gives his dedicated assistant Rachel Songbird (Meredith Morton) a hard time for even suggesting the disappearances of several citizens have something to do with overgrown calamari. But when rookie SCUBA cop Nick Hartfeld (Michael Reilly Burke) loses his partner Walter (Frederic Lehne) to the squiggly creature, Hartfeld defies orders and goes after it fulltime. But can he save Rachel and a bus load of school children trapped in a tunnel under the river following an attack by a giant octopus? ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide
Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
disliked it.
File under "Low Budget B-Movie, 1950s Style, Nature Gone Awry." Little is different in
Octopus II than what was in Them! oh so many movies and years ago. In fact, the people populating
Octopus II live in the Land Where No One Sees Movies, because if they did, they would know to stop ridiculing everyone who claims to have seen 50-foot tentacles dragging people into the river and they'd get busy killing the critter before it really goes amok. But amokness is the point of the story, and it hits a high point in amokedness early on, when Nick and Walter spend about 10 minutes of screen time fighting squiggly tentacles under water. The action is fairly competent -- although don't expect much in the computer-generated variety of special effects -- and the acting is appropriately arch. The whole thing is like the monster itself -- voracious but dumb. The scene in which the creature destroys the Statue of Liberty with the World Trade Center standing in the background does not sit well. Yuck. ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide