New Weird author Jeff VanderMeer unleashed a long-forgotten pile of shlock on his blog… TENTACLES, an Italian rip-off of Jaws featuring, yep, a giant octopus. This seems ripe for a comeback. Disturbingly, I actually remember this movie.

Yesterday, while doing our taxes, we followed up Pandorum, Dune, Moon, and Alien with a movie on cable…Tentacles. From 1977, clear rip-off of Jaws.

I have a feeling that everyone else already knows about this D-movie, but we were just aghast, watching winters, Huston, and others do their best impression of stink-o-rama. In one scene a killer whale trainer embarks on a long monologue aimed at convincing the whale to fight the killer giant octopus.

Here’s more of it, for masochists…

More clips at the original link.

(Jeff VanderMeer: Tentacles!)

(Empire of the Ants/Tentacles)

(Jeff VanderMeer: City of Saints and Madmen)

Jeff VanderMeer chimes in on Jaron Lanier’s new book, the short essay version of which apparently sobered some people up a few weeks ago when it was published in the New York Times. Nooo! The Illuminati have turned against the web! What next, oh evolutionary mandate… don’t… don’t… DON’T TAKE MY DRUUGS

Even as I?

 
io9 reports on the top 20 most anticipated science fiction books of 2010, including new offerings from Ian MacDonald, China Mi?ɬ

William Hope Hodgson was a master of the cosmically weird tale?

Awesome post by weird fiction author Jeff VanderMeer on British crime novelist Derek Raymond (also known as Robin Cook), one of my favorite writers.

Jeff reviews Raymond’s autobiography, which is apparently even harder to find than the rest of his books. From Raymond’s introduction:

I have said a lot about writing in these memoirs, with particular reference to the black novel. I could not have described my life in any depth without almost constant reference to the work that has given it meaning?