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9 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Let's make a giant squid movie in Bulgaria, but set it in New York!, 14 November 2004
Author: aloep from Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

*Mild Spoilers*

When it's a sequel to something that you've probably never heard of and something that was probably awful to begin with, you know you're in trouble. You know you're in even more trouble when it's directed by a certain Yossi Wein, the master of cheap and crappy Eastern European filmed action pictures like U.S Seals, Disaster and the likes. I have been actively seeking out his pictures which are often so bad they're funny.

The premise of a giant octopus terrorising New York Harbor isn't really something that can be easily accomplished in a direct to video movie as with the budgets Yossi Wein works with, he could never afford to shoot there let alone get a convincing giant octopus created, CGI or not. So, how exactly has Yossi managed to make a movie called "Octopus 2" set in New York involving a giant octopus?

Badly, is the first word that comes into mind and I wasn't expecting anything else from Yossi but if you've never seen a movie of his, the low quality will amaze you. Firstly, instead of actually filming it in New York, this movie was filmed in and around Sofia, Bulgaria. In an attempt to convince us that it's New York we're seeing, between almost every scene it cuts to stock footage of Manhattan, the New York centre and boats going through the river. A bunch of underwater stock footage and stock footage from "Daylight" starring Sylvester Stallone is also used and in the end, a good 30% of the movie must consist of stock footage mostly of New York and it isn't fooling anything, as all of this leads to a bunch of continuity errors. For example, it will show footage of a boat going through the river then cut to new footage of a completely different boat back in Bulgaria. Also there are big conflicts in scenery. The area in which Octopus 2 is filmed is obviously in a river or lake located outside of Sofia as we can see hills and woodland in the background, as opposed to the built up area of New York Harbor. But we'll be treated to another 20 seconds of stock New York footage after seeing this! More and more stuff keeps popping up, such as horribly out of sync voice dubbing of local Bulgarian "actors" being used as filler and the ever obvious European cars.

Now to the effects which are cheesy, cheesy, cheesy. You were probably wondering how they managed to fill in the giant octopus on a budget. Well, apparently not even filming it in Sofia, Bulgaria could spare them enough to create a convincing looking octopus as the giant squid in this is if anything, even worse than the mechanical shark in Jaws 4: The Revenge. It's a completely laughable rubber thing which we never see in full other than in some awful CGI and a small plastic model. The rubber object is quite obviously operated by hand off camera and gets wrapped around or hits it's victims from a bunch of different camera angles (obviously to hide the human operating it). It really is that bad. But it doesn't end there. Incredibly cheesy modelwork is used several times including a small model boat and an absolutely hilarious scene in which the lead has a nightmare about the "octopus" attacking a plastic toy of the statue of liberty while he is inside it. What this toy means to him, we will never know! When the octopus is broadcasted on the news, the news footage is absolutely laughable. We see a woman reporting it over a completely black background. Talk about cheap.

The characters are also ridiculously unimaginative and clichéd such as the long time detective who witnesses this giant octopus and everyone else basically telling him he's insane and that they want to get on with celebrating the 4th of July and the drunk witness named "Mad Dog". None of the characters are likable or convincing at all and you don't remotely care for them. The acting level is really embarrassing and is even harder to take seriously when you see them in action around stock footage and laughable effects.

With all the above taken in, this movie has no decent suspense, drama, thrills or action and like most Yossi Wein movies just comes across as a complete joke. Don't look at this expecting anything resembling a decent action/horror movie, this is a bad, bad movie but it's so bad and played so straight that it is unintentionally hilarious and is another Grade Z flick for those that enjoy awful cheese!

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4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Giant Octopus meets NYPD Blue!, 20 August 2002
Author: giantdevilfish from Pacific Ocean

I liked this movie a lot better then part one until the ending. The acting while not great (remember this is a direct to video movie after all) is a hell of a lot better then the first flick. Furthermore the effects are much better. The Octopus is actually in this movie a lot as opposed to being a minor character in the first flick which dealt with a submarine crew escorting a terrorist back to the U.S.A. Plus the Octopus looks a lot better. While there is really bad CGI effects, most of the effects were utilized with a huge animatronic Octopus as well as various tentacle props giving the Octopus a more solid look rather then BAD painted effects from the first film. HOWEVER the massive Stock footage from part one kinda ruins it after a while, BUT the ending destroyed this movie entirely for me!! To massive amounts of footage of kids singing on a school bus, to a complete and shameless rip-off of the film DAYLIGHT to 15 minutes of kids being rescued from the bus, to a horrible actress pretending to be an old Jewish women to the Octopus getting completely blown to bits only to resurface completely unharmed moments later to 6 different stock footage shots of the Octopus finally blowing up at the end to me scratching my head in disbelief!!

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Oh dear..., 19 October 2007
4/10
Author: sam_aj_01 from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

When i saw the first octopus movie it was a laugh see the cheesy acting and appalling effects. This film seemed to make up for the acting, but not the special effects. After Jaws and Piranha, sure, why not make a film about a killer octopus? The octopus invades the New York waters, where 2 police investigators try stopping the rampaging beast before the 4th of July.

A pretty clean plot and descent happenings but the octopus was pretty much appalling, its nice to see they actually made it this time but it looked like a piece of plastic... Better on a big budget really, this film could have been a good watch. There's a continuous amount of errors where it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't research the way octopus live...

Watch this if you like cheap DVD sequels, otherwise your better watching Jaws.

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3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
This movie hurts my head....., 22 January 2004
Author: str0ntiumd0g from Belfast

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

******WARNING. Spoilers ahead... although the movie is called Octopus 2. You kinda know what you are going to get really.******

I got this movie for Christmas along with 23 other top quality movies (including the first one) from my fiancee and her mother. They must really hate me! Only joking! Can't beat a load of bad movies for a great xmas!

Now Octopus 2 is a movie you have to be in the mood for. It's bad. The movie is about an octopus attacking people in New York. Okay this will be a stretch of the imagination from the very beginning. The first question that sprung into my warped little mind was how deep is that river? I mean that octopus is pretty damn big. It tries to cop a feel of the Statue of Liberty at one point. It's obviously very lonely too. Now here is the plot spoiler- big mutant octopus attacks and eats random people in New York using bad special effects and stock footage from the first Octopus movie. What a cheap killer octopus!

Now I don't think that this review needs an in depth synopsis of this masterpiece. It's bad and that is all that needs to be said really. BAD! However I would like to highlight just one thing that stands out in this movie and that is our hero Detective Nick. I like this guy. Once he has an idea in his head he will not let it go. About twenty minutes into this movie he has realised that there is an octopus killing people and everyone else is wrong. There is no evidence to support this but damn it he is right! How could it be anything else! His partner as well was so stereotypical it was scary. He was leaving the scuba team that week! He might as well have tattooed VICTIM in glowing letters across his forehead.

My recommendation for this movie is buy it! Hilarity prevails in every scene. Not for the faint of heart or the sane of mind. Oh this is so bad. Did I say that already?

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5 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
Utter garbage, 16 March 2003
Author: lee nicholson (leeio2002@yahoo.co.uk) from middlesbrough, england

I bought a DVD containing four movies (OCTOPUS/OCTOPUS 2/SPIDERS/SPIDERS 2) for £4. The SPIDERS movies were ok (quite gory for a '15' certificate) and good fun, with good(ish) fx. OCTOPUS 2, on the other hand....was garbage. The octopus played no part in the movie, whatsoever, and the surrounding plot was dull. No violence/no gore/just boredom. And i'll swear blind, it ACTUALLY used shots from DAYLIGHT, during the end, as the roof caved-in, in the tunnel. And with one of the most clumisly filmed/cost effective/unbelievable death scenes of the monster at the end...i give this pathetic movie 1 out of 10 Don't get me wrong, i like what NU-IMAGE are trying to do, with low budgets (they are becoming CORMAN-like in their approach) but this movie has NO plot, NO acting, NO action..and no place in my collection!

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Not as bad - I've seen worse, 20 August 2011
4/10
Author: ebiros2 from United States

As far as B sci-fi are concerned, this is a solid middle of the road movie. I've watched other craps like the Carnosaur series, and the likes of the Dog Soldier where I have no idea why it gets a high score. Many of these so called sci-fi movies are rip offs in that they state certain monster will appear, but when you see it, the total appearance time of the monster is less than a minute or two, and other 90 minutes is a filler where soldiers or who ever is acting scared and shouting macho BS. Many of them happens in such a dark setting that you can hardly see any details like AVP 2.

Compared to these, Octopus 2 has solid performance both from the actors and the octopus. There's a story that's believable, and the actions are not bad either.

There are other bad movies out there that's lot worse, and after seeing sci-fi movies for years, this is a solid middle of the road piece.

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
The only thing your capable of killing is a few brain cells, 15 December 2008
5/10
Author: sol1218 from brooklyn NY

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

(There are Spoilers) Ridicules but entertaining monster movie involving this now you see it now you don't giant octopus who's causing havoc in the East River. Almost all the action in the movie takes place not far from where the World Trade Center used to be in downtown Manhattan.

The killer octopus who was swept down to New York Bay, from its breeding grounds in Nova Scotia, by a major storm has found that New Yorkers are a lot more tasty then what it's been feeding on up north and decided to make New York its home away from home. New York City Harbor Patrol cops Nick Hatfield & Walter McNair,Michael Reily Burke & Fredric Lehne, get involved with the octopus almost by accident by arresting a top New York City Judge,Harry Anichkin, for trafficking in illegal drugs on his sailboat. Da Judge almost gets the two cops busted for false arrest but, being the drug peddler that he is, later in the film ends up being dragged down, with his stash of drugs, to the bottom of the East River by the shadowy octopus.

At first treated as nothing more then a practical joke the octopus makes himself known by eating a number of tourists and destroying a tug boat and it's entire crew in the East River. With the evidence mounting that there's a real danger looming over the city's millennium July 4th celebration the Mayor, Duncan Fraser, is determined to have it go on even if it means the possible deaths of hundreds of New Yorkers by attracting the killer octopus, uninvited of course, to it!

The inept special effects make the killer octopus about as scary as the rubber octopus used in the Ed Wood bad movie classic "Bride of the Monster". In fact the Ed Wood vision was a lot more funnier by having a 72 year old, who's recovering from heroin addiction, Bela Lugosi have it out with it with Bela doing the work of both the octopus, who's mechanical motor conked out during the filming, and himself.

The movie itself didn't end where the octopus was supposed to have its last stand in the waters of New York Harbor but of all place in the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel that just happens to be water free! We were given this big build up about the octopus planning to crash the big July 4th celebration that's supposed to have some 20,000 boats of all sizes and shapes in New York Harbor! But about the only boats we saw celebrating, if you can call it that, was a few tug and NYPD harbor patrol boats with their crews totally oblivious of what was going on, the big July 4th celebration, all around them.

The movie seemed to get lost in its storyline when it started to forget that it was about a giant killer octopus not a sequel to the Sylvester Stallone auctioneer "Daylight". Nick who has his hands full saving a bus load of school children stuck in the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel suddenly realizes, by probably being reminded off camera, that he's in the wrong movie and gets back to business by blasting the octopus, who seems to appeared out of nowhere, to pieces only after he already put it away, or seemed to have, some 15 minutes earlier!

One of the last movies to have in it on location shots of the now non-existent, due to the 9/11 attacks, World Trade Center which has more screen time then anyone, including the killer octopus, in the film. There's also the oddity of having the WTC moved around in the movie where we get to see it both south, where it actually was situated, and north, where it never was, of New York's City Hall!

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
An example of when a sequel is better than the original., 28 May 2005
Author: Prolox from Canada

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I know that this film has received a lot of negative reviews from fans & critics, but unfortunately I'm not one of them that thinks that this movie is stupid, yes this film is far from being a really great horror movie, but when compared to the original, OCTOPUS II looks like a masterpiece & in my opinion was loads better than the dull original, at least this was an actual mutant Octopus movie & not some lifeless, action picture with the Octopus in the back seat. The Octopus monster was neat & better looking this time out & the acting & directing was pretty good, plus the film is easier to watch without dozing off. Give it a try, you might like it, it's kind of fun in a B movie sort of way. If you never seen the original don't worry, OCTOPUS 2 has no connection with the original & is a much better movie.

*** stars

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2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
A pretty good sequel (When did they demand a sequel?), 12 October 2006
4/10
Author: rdthomp from Canada

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This is the sequel to Octopus.

Pff... OK. A lot of stock footage, but pretty good. I'm surprised that they actually had a giant robot octopus that actually didn't look that bad! I was actually quite surprised by that.

The movie overall was just OK fun. It never explained how the octopus got so big, and isn't linked it anyway to the first. But it was still fun.

The ending me and my friend laughed at. Basically, after blowing the octopus up once, the two main characters launch a bomb, and five explosions, most stock footage, appear on screen! We joked that they went to the dollar store and bought a 'five missiles in one' toy! Believe me, it has to be seen to believe! Overall just stupid fun. Worth giving a chance, buying if it's cheap.

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2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
We go down to the river… And into the river we DIE!, 25 July 2006
5/10
Author: Coventry from the Draconian Swamp of Unholy Souls

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

"Octopus", released one year before, was a bad movie that wasted an hour and a half of my (not-so) precious life, so why the hell would I bother to see a sequel? Actually, I don't know why but I did bother. And I'm somewhat glad I did, because part two is definitely a slight improvement over the first! "Octopus" was a really boring underwater monster-movie and, in the end, a ridiculously over-sized sea creature ate an entire cruise ship! At least here the action is more spread, the pace is faster and the script is less ambitious. Part two is more like a silly & cheesy "Jaws"-rip off that can easily be enjoyed by horror fans as long as they switch off all brain functions. A couple of days prior to the big 4th of July celebration, there are an unusual amount of accidents happening in New York's East River. An over-enthusiast diver cop quickly suggests that a flesh-eating octopus made the river to his territory but, of course, no one in his force or at City Hall takes him serious. Apparently none of the characters ever watched any 70's creature features, as it takes several more casualties before the Captain acknowledges there really is an octopus swimming in his river. The phony sea-critter is pretty damn huge, yet the screenplay never attempts to give a reason for its enormous proportions. No water pollution theories, genetic mutations or leaking barrels of toxic waste here… Just a mean big squid sightseeing the Big Apple for no reason! Quite clever, actually! At least this way they're not making things any worse! The heroic scuba-cop and his fresh love interest eventually blow up the eight-armed monster (twice!!) just in time to enjoy the Independence Day fireworks. I love happy endings. The special effects are okay, I guess, considering it's a typical Nu-Image production. The acting performances are pretty weak and there should have been at least a bit of nudity. Near the end of the film, the story really exaggerates with the use of embarrassing clichés, though! An entire bus of foreign children trapped in an underwater tunnel? C'mon…

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