Villian(s)  Mutant octopus

Actor(s):  Pier Angeli, Kerwin Mathews, Jeff Morrow, David Essex

Brief Description  Octaman (1971) is a low-budget, sci-fi horror creature feature written and directed by Harry Essex. The film is widely recognized as a loose, campy recycling of Essex’s own script for the 1954 classic Creature from the Black Lagoon, shifting the focus to a nuclear-mutated octopus hybrid. It is highly notable in film history for featuring the very first professional creature suit design by future legendary, seven-time Academy Award-winning makeup artist Rick Baker.

Plot:
Lead marine biologist Dr. Rick Torres and his assistant/fiancée Susan Lowry discover that underwater atomic testing has heavily contaminated the area with radioactive pollution. In the irradiated bogs, they capture a bizarre, small, mutant octopus that can easily walk on dry land. Needing more funding to continue their research, the core team briefly departs. In their absence, the "parent" of the captured specimen—a massive, six-foot-tall, half-man/half-octopus hybrid known as the Octaman—emerges from the swamp to reclaim its offspring and slaughter the remaining crew. Desperate to fund a full hunt, Dr. Torres secures the financial backing of Johnny Caruso, a morally bankrupt carnival showman who cares less about science and more about capturing the monster to exploit it in a freak show sideshow.

As the group attempts to trap the creature, Octaman goes on a bloody rampage, using strangulation, blunt force, and bizarre hypnotic eyes to kill off team members and local villagers. Mirroring Creature from the Black Lagoon, the monster develops an obsessive infatuation with Susan and kidnaps her. The team uses bright flashlights to blind the creature temporarily, forcing it to drop Susan. They manage to subdue the beast by trapping it inside a ring of fire and throwing a heavy net over it. However, a morning rain shower puts out the fire, reviving the Octaman. Following a final pursuit into a dead-end cave tunnel where the creature triggers a rockslide, the surviving members escape back to their RV—only to find the Octaman hiding inside waiting for them.