Things come to a head the next day. While most of the expedition goes out to investigate another find by Devito, Octaman comes ashore to attack. Johnny finds himself in the not-so-loving arms of the beast, while Rick’s other assistant Carlos ends up on the fatal side a tentacle slap.
Johnny survives his attack, as it is historically known that the octa-hug is a weaker attack than a straight up slapping. The monster, realizing this error in judgment, comes back that very night to finish the job while, once more, most of the expedition runs off to another area. This time Johnny got his gun and managed put some lead into his attacker, driving it off.
With Devito guarding Johnny and Susan, the others follow the blood trail to the lake. They take a motor boat out into the middle of the dark, looking for a monster that breathes water. INGENIOUS! Mort almost drowns for their efforts and the motor stops working. Now stranded, it allows the opportunity for a third attack on the RV.
By this point, Devito has vanished. Maybe he’s out taking a leak, maybe he’s looking for his script. In any case, he’s out of the picture for what happens next, only returning when it’s all over. (Hmmm.) Unaware no one’s watching, Johnny steps out of the RV for a breath of night air, getting tentacle slap to the face. This leaves Susan to face the Octaman. She takes a conveniently lit lamp and throws it at her attacker. It smashes open, setting the ambling cephalopod ablaze.
After a quick glance at the struggling boaters, the viewer sees Octaman in a decidedly uncooked state carrying an unconscious Susan away from the RV. Wuh? What happened to the burning and the flames? Shouldn’t he be just a little charred?
Never mind.
Watching this, all I can think of is a Johnny Cash song.
No, not RING OF FIRE. That’d be silly.
It was ‘I’VE BEEN EVERYWHERE, of course. What else would it be?
As he shambles back to his lair Susan recovers long enough to scream once. By this point Steve and Rick have reached the shore, and the sound brings them to the rescue. By using a flashlight, Steve keeps the monster from the water long enough for Rick to grab a gas container. He encircles the monster with gas then sets the fluid aflame. After bringing Susan out to safety, its only a matter of time before the fire burns up the oxygen all around him, rending Octaman unconscious.
Really. That’s what happens.
The whole containment routine is equally ludicrous. They lay a net over Octaman. That’s it. Not even tied down. They do dose it with tranquilizers, but what’s the proper dosage for a formerly charging calamari? In any case, the next night Octaman escapes the wonderful tight security measures. Shocking, to the extreme.
Tired of trying to capture the monster, the group tries to drive out of the area. Only the way blocked by a fallen (or rather pushed) tree. As the others try to breakthrough the barricade, Devito spies the monster wandering into a nearby cave.
On learning this, everybody loses whatever common sense they possessed and head in themselves. Thus ensues a whole mess of wandering through the dark without a lot happening. When they finally do encounter Octaman, they try to kill him outright. Which would seem to defeat the original purpose. Unless that’s what they intended when they went in. Which would have been nice to know before now.
Eventually sense returns to them and they decide to flee the cave. As they do, the film fails me outright and goes black, with the occasional flashlight. Sounds like a cave in. Maybe they did it that way rather to show the rocks falling to keep the budget down.
I WUZ IN UR BASE EATN YER CHEEZBURGERZ!
Devito makes up for getting them into trouble in the first place by finding a very narrow passage out for them to crawl through. (Well, the actors pretend it’s very narrow.) In time (a lot of time) they reach the surface and head back to the RV.
Which leads to one last RV attack. But this time, instead of Octaman being outside the vehicle, he’s waiting inside. Why? How? Did they leave the door open? Did he squeeze through a crack?
In any case, Mort takes a tentacle to the face (looks like it hurt, too). Then Steve falls, followed by Johnny and Devito. Susan retrieves a gun from Johnny but ends up in slimy arms. It even gets Rick in an octa-hug. As this is a Seventies Horror film one might almost expect them all to go, one by one, right here at the end. All smacked in the face by rubber tentacle.
However Susan, realizing she’s the one he’s been after, offers herself up to Octaman. He releases Rick and clumsily picks her up to take her… wherever he’s taking her. He almost reaches the water when the others (sans Johnny, whose dead) come. As they distract it, Susan pulls out a gun from someplace and shoots the monster.
Go Susan!
When it sets her down, the others fill it full of lead. It shambles back to the water and falls in, presumably. Until the sequel.
Wait. There was no sequel.
Disregard.
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