Day of the Tentacle(s)

Film: It Came from Beneath the Sea
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on Fire!

If you watch a science fiction movie from the 1950s, horror or not, you’re going find something very interesting about the way that the plot works. Regardless of what the threat is to mankind and society in general, there’s going to be a love story attached to it, and possibly a love triangle. This is the case for movies as diverse as The Deadly Mantis and Revenge of the Creature, and it’s true of It Came from Beneath the Sea. In fact, in this movie, the love story is so forward that we deal with almost none of the fun stop-motion giant octopus until the second half of the film.

True to its era, It Came from Beneath the Sea is going to also be forward about the advances of Science! when it comes to telling this story. In this case, we’ll be learning all about the new American atomic submarine that is purported to be the new ultimate weapon in keeping the U.S. safe from the dirty, dirty commies. As the film starts, it’s going through its shakedown cruise. During its travels, the ship encounters something unknown and is briefly captured. When it returns to Pearl Harbor, something biological is discovered wedged in the sub’s dive planes.

A team of biologists is rushed to the site. These are Lesley Joyce (Faith Domergue) and John Carter (Donald Curtis) of Harvard (and not Mars). Over a few days, and in the company of the sub’s commander, Pete Mathews (Kenneth Tobey), they determine that the object comes from an octopus. Honestly, if sushi had been a little more popular in the 1950s, it would have been easier to determine that the object is a large piece of tako sashimi.

Regardless, as the professors try to figure out why the giant octopus has attacked the sub (turns out it’s hydrogen bomb tests that have made the octopus radioactive, and thus repellent to its normal prey), we’re going to spend a surprising amount of time dealing with the obvious stodgy attraction between Dr. Joyce and Commander Mathews. There’s an initial hint of a love triangle, but Dr. Joyce’s interest in John Carter is purely professional. So, as reports of missing ships start filtering in and we get (literally) some pre-dinner dancing from our Hollywood-required romantic interests, the audience is honestly left wondering where all of the cool stop-motion giant octopus footage is hiding.

The answer to that question is that it’s hiding in the second half of the film. Eventually, the giant octopus gets spotted and even attacks the Golden Gate Bridge. The last chunk of the film concerns figuring out a way to kill off the beast, especially as it has started to attack the coastline of San Francisco. The proposed solution is a jet-propelled atomic torpedo that can be detonated remotely when the octopus is lured back out to sea. No one seems to be even a little concerned that additional atomic reactions in the ocean might cause even more giant creatures to surface, since that’s evidently what caused this one to show up.

The star of the movie, of course, is the octopus. While there are moments where it is clearly a giant prop, probably made of foam rubber, there are some fantastic sequences of the octopus attacking ships and the Golden Gate Bridge. This is early Harryhausen work, which means that it is kind of rudimentary in places, but rudimentary Harryhausen is generally better than even the best work of other stop-motion artists of the time. The benefit of what is happening here is the fact that octopuses are weird even in the best of situations. Making them gigantic like this is at least potentially scary, just because they are such bizarre things.

Honestly, It Came from Beneath the Sea is pretty standard for the era. Aside from the stop-motion work, there’s nothing here that you haven’t seen before in similar genre films of the era. It’s fine. It’s a standard giant monster picture that features a critter that kills a few innocent bystanders before ultimately being handled because humanity holds dominion over all of the animal kingdom, at least in God’s United States.

There’s a part of me that would love to remake movies like this one. Scrap the unnecessary romance plot and deal more with the monster. Seriously, let’s bring back the atomic radiation-inspired real-world critters. It would honestly be better and more fun than a lot of modern films.

Why to watch It Came from Beneath the Sea: Ray Harryhausen’s giant octopus!
Why not to watch: It seems far more concerned with romance than giant monster hijinks.