User reviews

Not a bad story, but the low budget rears its ugly head at times to undermine the effectiveness of the movie. A lot of the plot is predictable, but the film moves quickly and takes some time to introduce characters so you at least have some involvement and know what's going on. An illustration of the low budget is when a motor boat is "destroyed," you only see this as a CGI image from a distance. (No boats were harmed during the filming of this movie.) I also love the "metal mask," that looks like a pie-tin mold.

It's another big-sea-creature-on-the-loose story, but this one actually has an unusual motive for its vicious brutality (not simply hunger), a plot twist often absent in these made-for-TV flicks. The human characters are two teams of scientific artifacts treasure hunters (sort of an aquatic version of Raiders of the Lost Ark), and they're both after the same artifact. The bad guys all wear black so you know they're the bad guys; the baddest of the baddies (and the leader) always wears black suits, even though all the action is at a beach or on the water. Every line of dialog this guy has is a threat to somebody; they could have put a sign up saying "Generic Theat in Progress" whenever he shows up. The good guys wear other colors, even in their scuba gear so you know who's who during underwater fight scenes. The creature's inevitable attacks predictably interrupt these fights, and provide for other common monster movie clichés.

Certainly not a landmark film, but OK for a watch if you like these sea monster movies, or if you have nothing better to do.

but I watched the whole thing. Unfortunately full of errors regarding diving as my daughter kept commenting on throughout the movie.

Charlie O'Connell is definitely not the actor his brother is (not that his brother is a great actor). The Kraken was not much of a scare. I hated the underwater shots where it was hard to tell the difference between the good and bad guys. The best part of the movie was the jokes we made about it. Watch it if nothing else is on but don't have any expectations about quality. The tentacles of the Kraken are supposedly razor sharp but they only cut some of the time. The ending sucked the big enchilada. You gotta give the folks at SciFi some credit, they keep churning out these films so we can relive the whole B-movie thing of the 50's.

What if I told you this low-budget sea monster movie was so "off," I would have sworn it was shot in South Africa, which has given us many very bad sea creature flicks. It apparently was shot in Canada, which I still find hard to believe -- not that most Canadian-lensed flicks aren't just as abysmal. Two groups of people are after a treasured artifact, which is guarded by a giant squid. The two groups come to blows, but in the end the squid takes care of a lot of them. The only "name" actor is TV thespian Jack Scalia, who has seen better days. So has the director, who gave us the surreal and sublime THE GATE back in the day. I just can't get over how odd this movie feels. In a very small way, the plot resembles that of THE DEEP. However, it is not worth watching, unless you're having trouble sleeping.

At one point, still very early in the film, the male lead character can be seen reading a copy of Jules Verne's legendary novel "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" and even later in the film the book is mentioned several times more. This wasn't a coincidental choice, as the novel (and even more so the classic 50's film starring Kirk Douglas) largely introduced and immediately popularized the notorious Kraken-monster. The Kraken, these days primarily known as the thing that swallowed Johnny Depp in "Pirates of the Caribbean", is a gigantic type of squid that can reach a size of nearly 46 feet and reigns over the darkest depths of the sea. Normally the Kraken only lives in the Northern regions, like the cold seas of Norway and Iceland, but according to the script of this low-keyed and forgettable made-for-TV creature feature, the monster can easily also dwell American ocean stretches and it suddenly even got promoted to being the guardian of ancient Greek artifacts! For you see, the Kraken's territory in "Deadly Waters" encompasses Desolation Passage because that's where the valuable opal rests in a shipwreck, and the monster attacks everyone who sails in this passage, whether their intentions are bad (like multiple treasure hunters) or harmless (like Ray's parents). This may sound like a very interesting concept for a monstrous horror movie, but "Deadly Waters" is dreadfully boring and poorly made. I anticipated the giant squid monster to be entirely computer engineered, but it's even worse that anyone could fear, as it looks like a cute and big-eyed underwater puppy. The Kraken never looks menacing, not even when its tentacles embrace a medium-sized ship. The underwater cinematography is unclear and the monster's attacks are never properly shown, for obvious reasons. At best, we see people getting thrown into the water and pulled down to the depths. With a slight bit of luck, the water even colors a bit red. The acting performances are weak and the characters totally implausible. Nicole and Jenny hardly look like brilliant archaeologists in their tiny bikinis and Jack Scalia is probably the least convincing mafia lord ever. Why did I watch this junk, I do not know. They should make a law against the spreading of TV-movies in video stores, especially when they do not indicate anywhere it's a TV movie! Director Tibor Takács might consider a late career change, as he hasn't accomplished anything special since the late 80's, when he made "The Gate" and "I, Madman".

Yeah, I know it was made for TV and it sure looks it. From the moment I saw the opening titles and heard the theme music, I knew I was in for a baaad movie. I'm talking real bad. Once again, I bought a used DVD movie based on the cover art and fake reviews. I didn't see the made for TV 3 point type or else I would've stayed away. (Silly me.) The special effects budget must've been extremely low 'cause the CGI was cartoonish and unconvincing. The acting was poor and the entire movie should be honored with a Golden Turkey award. A movie strictly for making fun of. This movie would even have offended Ed Wood's ethics of film making. Kraken, should be sunk in the cold deep waters of anonymity.

I've never read JAWS by Peter Benchley but have of course seen the movie andJAWS is considered to be one of the few films that improves greatly onthe book . Much of this I'm told is to do with a large number of subplots being jettisoned in the adaptation , leaving only the main plot of a man eating shark and of the protagonists mission to kill it . One can't help thinking the producers of this movie should have done something similar

The major problem is that much of the running time is taken up with a bunch of bad guys wanting to get their hands on a very expensive Greek opal . In many ways the story resembles another Benchley story THE DEEP which might not be a problem as such but when you've got a film called KRAKEN:TENTACLES OF THE DEEP then a prospective audience is expecting a giant squid to be the focus of the story rather than humans . The producers seem aware of this shoehorning a squid attack just to remind the audience there's a squid central to the plot when in fact it's the producers themselves who obviously need reminding

As it's produced by Nu Image Films the production values are rather poor with the squid being a rather obvious CGI creation . Like nearly every film featuring a giant squid it makes a roaring sound ( Squids are mute ) and can grab people off the decks of ships ( Considered impossible by leading scientists ) and of course when someone gets devoured underwater there's a big bubble of blood rising to the surface . Not only that but biologists are all in their early twenties , have blonde hair and walk around in bikini tops thereby exposing their admirable mammary glands . One can't help thinking Nu Image Films and The Sci-Fi channel are in cahoots to get more guys to sign up to university science classes . I doubt however if anyone who worked on this film would be able to spell the word science

So here in Oregon we have our share of crappy weather Saturdays. I personally choose to enjoy a day of lame Sci-Fi (or SyFy, whatever) channel movies. Yes they're all B-movies, but some are just so bad they're GREAT!

The Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep, however, is NOT one of those.

This film puts the UN in unwatchable. The plot is so thin you couldn't cut it with a razor. The acting is atrocious! Especially Charlie O'Conner! My god is he bad! His acting in this film actually makes Victoria Pratt and Jack Scalia look like Oscar nominees! While we're on the subject, Mr. Scalia is supposed to be Greek. But his accent changes constantly from European, to Austrailian, to non-existent! The directing? I don't know if the director even showed up!

My suggestion? Skip this one. It's boring, contrived, nonsense. Too much silly, predictable treasure hunting, not enough giant squid.

This movie has nothing going for it all. It is another jaws rip-off involving a squid instead of a shark, and what is worse is that it has already been done before. If it wasn't $2, I wouldn't have bought it.

That said, I enjoyed it. The most interesting parts were not involving the squid at all - it is more about the treasure hunts and the race to find the opal. If only the characters' motivations were a bit more convincing - especially the villains.

The Squid itself? Pretty average CGI, but what could you really do without a huge budget for this sort of thing. However, there is some surprisingly convincingly violent scenes in there.

Anyway, if you are in the mood for monster flicks, this does the job.

I thought this movie was rather good for what it was. I've recently watched A-list movies that were much much worse. It's very watchable and interesting, the characters are attractive, and I like the mythical connotations in the movie. I love Greek Myths and Folklore. I don't usually watch the Syfy Channel, but I came across this movie and got sucked in...it's awesome. My only complaints about this movie would have to be the main character, Ray, although sexy, sounded like he had emphezema. lol But he pretty much made up for it with his sexy looks...as he looks a lot like Ty Pennington. It's not my all time favorite, but definitely worth your time.

"Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep" is an all-right creature feature.

**SPOILERS**

Off the coast of, a diving crew, Nicole, (Victoria Pratt) Jenny, (Kristi Angus) and Michael, (Cory Montkeith) find a collection of sunken ships from throughout different time periods sunk in the area. Ray, (Charlie O'Connell) hears this and offers his help. After going on a dive, they are attacked by a giant squid, and barely make it back. Maxwell Odemus, (Jack Scalia) an old rival of Nicole's, arrives and offers a reluctant Nicole a proposition about the creature. After finding the true nature of the treasure found earlier, the two teams race to find it before being killed by the protective squid.

The Good News: As far as giant squid movies go, this one wasn't all that bad. The best aspect is that it decides not to spend all the time on the creature and instead weaves into the lives of others, rather than just being stuck over a single night of carnage. It takes place over a couple days, and that's a rare sight for a film like this. It was also a pretty nice idea to not make it just a biological mutation and was instead just a regular creature. That makes for a far more believable monster. The underwater action is all great, combining to make some great moments. The first attack near the wreck is pretty suspenseful, as it's hard to really get a sense of what's going on in the scene and there's an air that something isn't quite right. It's one of the few scenes around that features a similar idea that's successfully executed right, making the suspense out of what is on-screen through the elements presented. The second dive does the suspense to a much lesser degree, but it makes up for it with the addition of a couple kills and some gore to the mix that is a little welcome. The few non-dragging deaths in here was also nice, but it's only too bad that it hardly ever happened.

The Bad News: Frankly, this one suffers from one nagging problem that all similar films suffer from; the use of bad, cheap, phony looking CGI to render the monster. It looks very bad, hardly ever meshes with the actors on the screen, and doesn't really gel with the general rest of the film. It even changes sizes a couple times, making it less of threat. It really should be stopped. The only other really big gripe with the film is that it has a majority of deaths that just involve pulling someone under the water. Most of the kills are done that way, and it really didn't do a lot to establish a general feel for the creature. a couple of different methods would've made it a little more of a frightening creature. There's still a couple of other little moments in here that didn't work or were examples of the usual disregard for logic, plot, continuity or whatever else the Sci-Fi Channel's originals are consistently missing, which are in abundance here as well.

The Final Verdict: It's a pretty decent film, but there's still some decent work in there along the way. The biggest thing is that the killer in the film isn't all that threatening, which can really destroy many films. Had that been fixed, it would've been an alright film at best.

Rated : Violence and some language

This has got to be one of the worst movies i've seen in the last 7 years and i have seen a lot movies in these 7 years, as i can't watch TV in China. I was hoping for a good flick with some scary monster and a would have taken the bad acting for granted but the dialog killed me - lame as...

Awesome actors, original dialog, spectacular effects and gosh i loved the bad guys dressed in black - that actually cracked me up! Gotta love the blonde doctors with killer bodies - the second blond chick was a particular great actress - SARCASM if that wasn't clear yet.

Anyway can't recommend a bigger waste of time - top choice this one

Mansquito, Mega Snake, Ice Spiders, and now a big squid just waiting to be turned into delicious calamari. Tibor Takács has a lot of experience giving us the latest dangerous creature, and he doesn't do anything different here.

Not only do we have a giant sea creature, but it comes with an interesting story about Greek mythology and a Snidely Whiplash character (Jack Scalia) that plans to steal the treasure and kill everyone. You already know how he ends up.

I was most interested in having some long-held beliefs dispelled in this movie. I was always under the impression that large breasts and IQ were inversely proportional, especially if the large breasts came with blonde hair. I was wrong. We see here two large-breasted blonde's doing scientific research with sophisticated equipment. Only one of them - the student intern (Kristi Angus) - spends a lot of her time attached to the closest hunk (Cory Monteith). The scientist, Victoria Pratt from "Mutant X", is interested in proving her theory, so the interested hunk (Charlie O'Connell - Cruel Intentions) will just have to wait until the mission is over.

I only tuned into this to see Christa Campbell, who managed to get eaten without saying a line.

I wasn't expecting much from Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep, and I certainly didn't get much from the finished product. The scenery is quite nice, but pretty much nothing else works. The underwater sequences, which I thought would be a redeeming quality at least, but was hindered by very unclear camera work and contrived action. The photography wasn't just bad in the underwater sequences, it was haphazard everywhere else as well. The music and sound effects are generic, and the special effects are very cheaply rendered. The kraken is under-utilised and doesn't pose much of a threat. The death scenes are very lame, having nothing to them other than people being dragged under water. The dialogue is cheesy, the story is uninteresting and predictable and the characters are stereotypical and have no motivations to them, especially the villains. The acting is very poor as well, the female scientists don't act so and Jack Scaglia is equally unconvincing as a mobster. Everybody else is bland. All in all, a really bad film but not quite bad enough to be bottom-of-the-barrel. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Thirty years ago, Ray Reiter (Charlie O'Connell) witnessed the death of his parents by the kraken. Determined to avenge their murders, he joins a perilous high seas expedition that brings him face to face with the kraken, the guardian of the Greek Opal. Oh, and there is a crime lord involved in here somewhere, too.

This film is pretty awful. It looks like it was made for the SyFy network (and probably was), and its star power is Charlie O'Connell, the cheap version of Jerry O'Connell with a nastier voice. There is a part where they are looking for a Trojan mask. I have no idea how it got underwater, or how they had photos of it before it was surfaced (although two others exist).

Product placement from Diet Pepsi. How Pepsi felt this in any way helped their image is beyond me.

The soft pop rock totally not necessary... takes away from the film, which would have been better with a non-vocal score.

Christa Campbell appears, but this does not save the film.

The movie had a lot of sexy women, gritty stuff, violence, and ugly monsters, Victoria, Pratt it's good enough to oggle, since her appearance in TV shows.

And it's pretty much similar to John Stockwell's movies of being sex and grit however, it's pretty much that these 2000 have a lot of beachwear outside of the beach.

End the kraken's are very very similar to other horror, movie monsters And this is pretty much an OK movie the male and female we're later become the final girl and final guy that I read is that the main villain or monster villain of the film is a sole Survivor of prehistoric mollusks.

I have to say that the script actually saves this creature feature. Aside from the lousy CGI, the character development and witty banter actually make me empathize with the characters. The draft writers should really be moving on to more emotionally engrossing projects. Maybe give them a run on Stargate or Battlestar Galactica?

We all should understand how SciFi movies work. They really hamper the creative talent. I know from inside sources that Larva, written by an Emmy nominated scribe, had its budget slashed 3,000%. What the dilly yo SciFi? If we genre fans are willing to shell out $500 for the latest Superman bust (well worth it, teehee), then surely you can spend the big bucks on our flicks. At the very least, you can take a chance on some fine young writing talent.

Just my two cents.

Live long and proser,

Jim

this movie surprised me.i found it better than i expected.i thought it would be pretty lame,instead,its not too bad.i found the story interesting and well paced,for the most part.the acting was adequate for this type of movie.but i didn't like everything about the movie.i found some of the characters,(mainly the villains)too stereotypical for my tastes.that annoyed me a bit.that and some of the dialogue was stereotypical and clichéd.as for the creature itself,i thought it looked pretty impressive at times,and fairly unrealistic and cheap at others.one observation i have is that from an Echo Bridge co-production,this movie was more graphic than any of the others i have seen.anyway,i thought there were more positives than negatives,and i was entertained.for me,Kraken:Tentacles of the Deep is a 7/10

Don't listen to the low ratings people on this one. People who perpetually give bad reviews tend to use flowery language to make themselves sound credible. I've made it my goal to call these posers out.

That being said, this is a solid monster flick. The acting is decent, the special effects are surprisingly good, and the plot is fresh and innovative. All in all, I can't find a lot wrong with this movie. Is it Citizen Kane? Of course not! But if you're looking for a good little monster movie to watch while eating pizza and drinking beer, you could do a lot worse. I did think it was humorous that the women were constantly in bikini tops. Oh well...

Released to TV in 2006, "Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep" chronicles the adventures of an expedition led by archaeologist Nicole (Victoria Pratt) to find a legendary Greek Opal, which turns out to be guarded by the very beast that murdered one of the team member's parents (Charlie O'Connell), a giant squid. As they come face to face with the creature they are forced to tangle with a ruthless treasure-hunting mobster (Jack Scalia), who will stop at nothing to steal the treasure.

While the BC locations are great and the squid looks pretty good for low-budget CGI, the acting of the protagonists is too flat and the villain is overly cartoony. Fitness model Pratt comes off as a more buff Kate Hudson, but doesn't do much for me. Michal Yannai as Sally is equally blasé. The stunning Nicole McKay is on hand as the heavy's babe for all of 20 seconds. I realize a lot of work went into making this movie and it's worthwhile if you favor Pratt, O'Connell or sea monster flicks, but it's just overall too prosaic.

The movie runs almost 90 minutes and was shot in Britannia Beach, Squamish & Vancouver, British Columbia.

GRADE: C-