Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep
Encyclopedia
Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep, also known as Deadly Water, is a 2006
made-for-television natural horror
B-movie
produced by Nu Image Films and Brightlight Pictures
as a Sci Fi Channel original film. It premiered on the Sci Fi channel
on September 23, 2006. Directed by Tibor Takács and starring Charlie O'Connell
, Victoria Pratt
, and Jack Scalia
, the film focuses on a marine biologist and a sailor who join forces to find lost Trojan treasures while battling the giant squid who killed the sailor's parents while he was a child, and a treasure hunting mobster who wants the items for himself. The film was primarily panned by critics for the special effects, far-fetched plot, and scarcity of scenes involving the titular creature.
) was the sole survivor when a giant squid
, or kraken
, attacked his parents' boat. In the present, marine archaeologist Nicole (Victoria Pratt
) and her assistants Michael (Cory Monteith
) and Jenny (Kristi Angus
) are searching for a legendary opal
and a Trojan
death mask
in the same area.
During an outing Nicole's boat is attacked and the boat's captain is killed leaving everyone in a panic frenzy. The survivors are forced to return to shore and begin to fix their boat while searching for a new skipper. Ray, a sea creature hobbyist pays a visit after learning about the circumstances of the previous skipper's death on the news. While Nicole is suspicious she allows Ray to join the team in return that he fixes her boat. Maxwell Odemus (Jack Scalia
), Nicole's competitor, arrives to taunt Nicole and then offer to join forces with her, but she declines as he tends to steal other people's archaeological finds to sell on the black market. Eventually, Nicole and Ray find the likely spot for the opal and return to shore to prepare themselves for the retrieval mission.
That night, Maxwell has one of his goons, Ike (Aleks Paunovic) pay off a drunken Michael to learn where Nicole & crew are going, then has their boat burned. Recognizing the distress and broken-dreamed Nicole, Ray buys a new boat using his life savings, and the crew heads back out. Maxwell uses the co-ordinates acquired from Michael to drive out to the treasure spot and his group attack when Nicole's team arrive. Holding Michael and Sally hostage to force Nicole and Ray to cooperate and dive for the artifacts even though the squid is certainly waiting below, Maxwell gets Ike to shoot Micheal who dies not too long after. Sally and Nicole still are in a fish container that starts flooding from the Kraken attacking the boat. Ray emerges from the water and climbs onto the ship and frees Sally and Nicole and leave Micheal's corpse, as Maxwell grabs Jenny and holds a gun to her temple the Kraken attacks Maxwell and grabs Jenny. Nicole, horrified, attempts to save her, but Ray prevents her from doing so as it is too late to save her. In the battle that ensues the Kraken kills Ike and Maxwell before being killed by Nicole and Ray. The boat sinks, presumably killing Sally, while Nicole and Ray are safe and Ray saved the mask. The opal is last seen on the bottom of the sea and the film cuts into credits.
on September 23, 2006 for the channel's Saturday Night "Movie of the Week" premiere. Echo Bridge Entertainment released the film to Region 1 DVD on April 17, 2007. It was re-released on March 4, 2008 as part of a "Double Feature" set with the similarly premised film Raging Sharks
. On December 15, 2008, Boulevard Entertainment released the film to Region 2 DVD in the United Kingdom
under the original title Deadly Water.
's Scott Weinberg considered it "one of the silliest monster movies I've ever seen" and compared it to a Lifetime Television
film "with a few gory bits". Calling it a "ungainly, cheap-looking, and frankly boring flick", he dismissed the unrealistic special effects, "photogenic automaton" cast, and the script as a "clumsy mish-mash of cliche, stereotype and stupidity".
2006 in film
- Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2006...
made-for-television natural horror
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
B-movie
B-movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
produced by Nu Image Films and Brightlight Pictures
Brightlight Pictures
Brightlight Pictures Inc. is a Canadian film production and television production company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The company was founded in 2001....
as a Sci Fi Channel original film. It premiered on the Sci Fi channel
Syfy
Syfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...
on September 23, 2006. Directed by Tibor Takács and starring Charlie O'Connell
Charlie O'Connell
Charles "Charlie" O'Connell is an American actor and reality television personality. He is known for his appearance on The Bachelor, as well as appearing in several of his older brother, Jerry O'Connell's projects, including a starring role as Colin Mallory in the fourth season of the science...
, Victoria Pratt
Victoria Pratt
Victoria Ainsle Pratt is a Canadian actress and fitness model. Her television roles include Xena: Warrior Princess, Once a Thief, Cleopatra 2525, Mutant X, and Day Break. Her film roles include House of the Dead 2.-Early life:Pratt attended Chesley District High School in Chesley, Ontario...
, and Jack Scalia
Jack Scalia
Jack Scalia is an American actor. He has had many roles in television series , television movies, and feature films.-Early life:...
, the film focuses on a marine biologist and a sailor who join forces to find lost Trojan treasures while battling the giant squid who killed the sailor's parents while he was a child, and a treasure hunting mobster who wants the items for himself. The film was primarily panned by critics for the special effects, far-fetched plot, and scarcity of scenes involving the titular creature.
Plot
As a child, Ray Reiter (Charlie O'ConnellCharlie O'Connell
Charles "Charlie" O'Connell is an American actor and reality television personality. He is known for his appearance on The Bachelor, as well as appearing in several of his older brother, Jerry O'Connell's projects, including a starring role as Colin Mallory in the fourth season of the science...
) was the sole survivor when a giant squid
Giant squid
The giant squid is a deep-ocean dwelling squid in the family Architeuthidae, represented by as many as eight species...
, or kraken
Kraken
Kraken are legendary sea monsters of giant proportions said to have dwelt off the coasts of Norway and Iceland.In modern German, Krake means octopus but can also refer to the legendary Kraken...
, attacked his parents' boat. In the present, marine archaeologist Nicole (Victoria Pratt
Victoria Pratt
Victoria Ainsle Pratt is a Canadian actress and fitness model. Her television roles include Xena: Warrior Princess, Once a Thief, Cleopatra 2525, Mutant X, and Day Break. Her film roles include House of the Dead 2.-Early life:Pratt attended Chesley District High School in Chesley, Ontario...
) and her assistants Michael (Cory Monteith
Cory Monteith
Cory Allan Monteith is a Canadian actor and musician, best known for his role of Finn Hudson on the Fox television series Glee.-Early life:...
) and Jenny (Kristi Angus
Kristi Angus
Kristi Angus is a Canadian actress who has appeared as a guest star in episodic roles in TV series, such as The Twilight Zone, Earth: Final Conflict, Total Recall 2070 or Instant Star...
) are searching for a legendary opal
Opal
Opal is an amorphous form of silica related to quartz, a mineraloid form, not a mineral. 3% to 21% of the total weight is water, but the content is usually between 6% to 10%. It is deposited at a relatively low temperature and may occur in the fissures of almost any kind of rock, being most...
and a Trojan
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...
death mask
Death mask
In Western cultures a death mask is a wax or plaster cast made of a person’s face following death. Death masks may be mementos of the dead, or be used for creation of portraits...
in the same area.
During an outing Nicole's boat is attacked and the boat's captain is killed leaving everyone in a panic frenzy. The survivors are forced to return to shore and begin to fix their boat while searching for a new skipper. Ray, a sea creature hobbyist pays a visit after learning about the circumstances of the previous skipper's death on the news. While Nicole is suspicious she allows Ray to join the team in return that he fixes her boat. Maxwell Odemus (Jack Scalia
Jack Scalia
Jack Scalia is an American actor. He has had many roles in television series , television movies, and feature films.-Early life:...
), Nicole's competitor, arrives to taunt Nicole and then offer to join forces with her, but she declines as he tends to steal other people's archaeological finds to sell on the black market. Eventually, Nicole and Ray find the likely spot for the opal and return to shore to prepare themselves for the retrieval mission.
That night, Maxwell has one of his goons, Ike (Aleks Paunovic) pay off a drunken Michael to learn where Nicole & crew are going, then has their boat burned. Recognizing the distress and broken-dreamed Nicole, Ray buys a new boat using his life savings, and the crew heads back out. Maxwell uses the co-ordinates acquired from Michael to drive out to the treasure spot and his group attack when Nicole's team arrive. Holding Michael and Sally hostage to force Nicole and Ray to cooperate and dive for the artifacts even though the squid is certainly waiting below, Maxwell gets Ike to shoot Micheal who dies not too long after. Sally and Nicole still are in a fish container that starts flooding from the Kraken attacking the boat. Ray emerges from the water and climbs onto the ship and frees Sally and Nicole and leave Micheal's corpse, as Maxwell grabs Jenny and holds a gun to her temple the Kraken attacks Maxwell and grabs Jenny. Nicole, horrified, attempts to save her, but Ray prevents her from doing so as it is too late to save her. In the battle that ensues the Kraken kills Ike and Maxwell before being killed by Nicole and Ray. The boat sinks, presumably killing Sally, while Nicole and Ray are safe and Ray saved the mask. The opal is last seen on the bottom of the sea and the film cuts into credits.
Production
The film was produced under the working title Deadly Waters. In July 2006 the Sci Fi channel held a contest in which participants submitted potential titles for the upcoming film. Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep was selected as the winning title. Rejected entries for the name included such titles as Killimari, Stop or My Squid Will Shoot, Tentacles Eight: Humans Two, The Squid Stays in the Picture, and Two Guys, A Girl, & a Giant Squid.Distribution
Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep premiered on the Sci Fi channelSyfy
Syfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...
on September 23, 2006 for the channel's Saturday Night "Movie of the Week" premiere. Echo Bridge Entertainment released the film to Region 1 DVD on April 17, 2007. It was re-released on March 4, 2008 as part of a "Double Feature" set with the similarly premised film Raging Sharks
Raging Sharks
Raging Sharks is a 2005 low-budget direct-to-DVD science fiction/horror film.-Description:Raging Sharks is the seventh shark movie that was released by Nu Image Films, following Shark Attack, Shark Attack 2, Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, Shark Zone, and Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy...
. On December 15, 2008, Boulevard Entertainment released the film to Region 2 DVD in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
under the original title Deadly Water.
Reception
Reviewing the film for UGO Networks, Troy Rogers praised the film for its "straightforward and easy to follow" storyline and its special effects. Cautioning that viewers needed to approach the film with the right "outlook", he felt it a "cool mindless way to spend a Saturday night" that "offers a boatload of entertainment". When the initial premise of the movie was announced as part of the contest, Jon Condit of Dread Central found it to be the "most far-fetched premise of all time" and notes that Sci Fi later began describing it in a "more of a run-of-the-mill creature feature" way. He joked that the film's final title ended up being the same sort of title one would expect Sci Fi themselves to create, and calling it a "stinker" suggested that Sci Fi should have allowed the winner to make the film itself. He heavily criticized the producers for "[reducing] the title monster to being nothing more than a recurring plot device that isn't even the centerpiece of the film", and felt you could completely remove the squid from the film with little impact. When the squid is seen, Condit found it "boring", stating that its "attacks [were] among the least suspenseful ever seen in an animal gone amok type of flick.". DVD TalkDVD Talk
DVD Talk is a website for DVD enthusiasts founded in January 1999 by Geoffrey Kleinman when DVDs and DVD players were first beginning to hit the market.The site started as an online forum, an email newsletter, and a page of DVD news and reviews...
's Scott Weinberg considered it "one of the silliest monster movies I've ever seen" and compared it to a Lifetime Television
Lifetime Television
Lifetime Television, often referred to as Lifetime TV, or most commonly, Lifetime, is an American cable television specialty channel devoted to movies, sitcoms and dramas, all of which are either geared toward women or feature women in lead roles. The cable network is owned by A&E Television Networks...
film "with a few gory bits". Calling it a "ungainly, cheap-looking, and frankly boring flick", he dismissed the unrealistic special effects, "photogenic automaton" cast, and the script as a "clumsy mish-mash of cliche, stereotype and stupidity".