This movie holds the distinction of being some of Rick Baker's first work. Made in Mexico, it was directed by Harry Essex, who wrote It Came from Space and Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Dr. Rick Torres (Kerwin Mathews, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad) and Susan Lowry (Pier Angeli in her final film, as she died during production of the film) has found not just too much radiation in the waters of a small Mexican town, but also a mutant octopus that can crawl on land.

The mainstream science community scoffs at this notion, so Torres must work with circus owner Johnny Caurso (Jerome Guardino, who in addition to acting, as also the second-unit director from Grave of the Vampire and Dream No Evil), who wants to take the octopus on the road.

There's some ridiculousness here with David Essex (The Cremators) as Davido, a Mexican Indian who shares the legend of the half-serpent, half-man that lives in these waters. He's able to escape just about any predicament due to his magical native powers.

The man in the Octaman suit was Read Morgan, who was The Car, Blood Beach, Dudes, Hollywood Hot Tubs and more. The suit was so fragile and the vision so limited, that led to the shambling, near drunken way that the creature moves.

Even if you haven't seen this movie, you've seen it. In Fright Night, Peter Vincent shows the final scenes - where beauty does indeed kill the beast - as being from a movie called Mars Needs Flesh.

I was not expecting much when I watched this film via Amazon Prime and it managed to still be worse than my expectations. Perhaps I thought it would be better due to Rick Baker being part of the team behind this and I know it knows how to do great make up and such, but this one featured a monster that could not open or close its mouth, blink and it only minimally moved its eyes. There are a couple of good kills where I believe Baker had to have a hand in, but otherwise this film is a bit slow. I mean, I watched Slugs the other night and the slugs were faster killers than Octaman!

The story has scientist testing water in a Latin American country and they discover a small octopus with strange eyes and rubber texture. Okay, they didn't mention its rubbery look, I did, as it looks like a toy I once had as a young child. Well they get some guy to back their expedition and they travel on a magical RV where if you look out the window you can see Africa! Seriously, at one point the woman looks out the window and sees a Cheetah. Well, when they arrive they find the person they left behind dead and they begin to search for the large creature and one of them keeps getting hit in the face by it, they capture it and manage to lose it within seconds and they get trapped in a cave that seemed like its only purpose in the movie was to pad out the film!

So we have bad looking monster, a very unlikable cast and very little in the way of gore and no nudity. Sure this film is nice to make fun of, but as they are in that cave you want to yell at the television for that one guy just to call to the others to come on instead of crawling back through the cave to get them. So if I am rooting for someone in this flick it is the monster who keeps blowing its opportunities to kill everyone cause he wants the woman...I don't know why as he has no genitals to speak of.

So, if you want to watch this, be prepared to make a joke or two. I am surprised it was never featured on MST3K back in the day. The monster looks like he was built to battle Godzilla, but Godzilla said he would not work with such a trashy looking opponent so it got regulated to one of those Ultraman ripoff shows instead. Even the creatures in Green Slime looked a hundred times better, as you can literally see the boots on the tentacles it is walking on!