Tentacles (Italian: Tentacoli) is a 1977 horror-thriller film directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis and starring John Huston, Shelley Winters, Bo Hopkins, Cesare Danova, Delia Boccardo and Henry Fonda.

While a marine biologist attempts to stop the octopus before more tourists fall victim to the creature, it appears that a corporation may be connected to the cephalopod's murderous behavior.

The local sheriff has no leads, but newspaper reporter Ned Turner suspects the construction of an underwater tunnel by the Trojan company, owned by Mr. Whitehead.

The initial script was much more comedic and satirized the "killer animal" subgenre, but after executive producer Samuel Z. Arkoff had his writer Steven W. Carabatsos retool it, it became much more serious.

Filming took place on location in Atlanta, Georgia (where Assonitis would later shoot The Visitor and Madhouse), and Oceanside, Pismo Beach, and San Diego, California.

[11] For the U.S. release, several cast and crew adopted "American"-sounding aliases, including director Ovidio G. Assonitis (as "Oliver Hellman"), composer Stelvio Cipriani ("S.W.

Lawrence Van Gelder of The New York Times called it "an all-too-familiar giant octopus movie" that suffered from "atrocious acting in minor roles", "occasionally poor dubbing" and "a totally unoriginal story".

[13] Variety noted that although "John Huston, Shelley Winters and Henry Fonda may bolster prospects", they "are all squandered in this one, thanks to a leaden script plus wooden direction by Oliver Hellman (who's also producer Ovidio Assonitiz)".

[16] Tom Milne of The Monthly Film Bulletin declared: "A devastatingly silly rehash of the Jaws formula, atrociously scripted, stiltedly acted, and reaching its low point in a grotesquely maudlin finale where the hero pours his heart out in a pep talk to the whales he has trained to graduate standards of communication.