After tapping into some shark horror at the beginning of the weekend, I ended the weekend with a triple feature focusing gators and crocs. Eek!
FRESHWATER (2016)
When a killer alligator movie…becomes a slasher? Well, that’s one way to make your lame, low budget alligator movie different.
Zoe Bell, powerhouse stuntwoman who starred in Death Proof, plays an alligator expert that comes to town when people start dying off. The first kill is a lame red blood spurt in the water, basically preparing us for all the letdowns to come.
Meanwhile, a bunch of college kids heads to a cabin on one of the islands in the area. Two of them are killed (more red blood spurts in the water) and then the rest of the kids spend the majority of the film doing nothing but wondering how they’re going to get off the island. The highlight is the campy scream queen performance of one actress.
The few times we see the alligator, it’s a cheesy CGI thing that’s totally gray with red eyes. I would have taken more of this and tons of bad CGI gore attacks over the nothing we get.
The sudden twist in the final act has more people becoming victims of a psycho than the gator. If only the psycho had come out to play earlier, this may been a little more thrilling, because the gator was a total bore.
ALLIGATOR X (aka: Jurassic Predator: Xtinction) (2014)
Somehow I really blew it with my gator selections here…finding not one but two gator movies that are more about the evil humans than the actual damn gator attacks.
At least the terrible CGI gator in this film is a prehistoric creature, so it’s a little more interesting to look at in between all the human drama, which involves a woman giving a boat tour to a couple after refusing to sell her land to her ex-husband, played by Supernatural frenemy Crowley.
While out on the tour they get abducted by a couple of baddies with a sinister plan that is slooooowly revealed. So much time is focused on banter between the abductors and the abductees that it’s easy to forget you’re watching a gator movie for a while.
Cutie Lochlyn Munro, known mostly for playing a sheriff in horror movies, plays…the sheriff. I wonder if he just holds onto the same sheriff costume and pulls it out of his closet every time he’s cast in a new role.
This film is just as underwhelming as Freshwater, but at least the funny CGI gator face delivers a couple of laughs at the end.
CROC (2007)
Considering this one came from 2007, gives Michael Madsen top billing, and is identified as a made-for-TV movie on IMDb, I was assuming it would be just another super hokey CGI SyFy flick.
Would you believe the combo of real croc footage, CGI croc, and model croc mouth along with some great editing makes for some kick-ass kills? If nothing else, this one most definitely delivers on the cheap thrills.
The plot is the usual throwaway. This time some young American dude making money off tourists in Thailand is targeted by all kinds of ethical and unethical organizations. However, when people start turning up dead, he teams up with expert croc hunter Michael Madsen to hunt it down and save the day.
The croc attacks are a blast, including scenes of the croc getting a feisty couple in the water and gulping down a bratty kid, and even a fantastic sequence that gives the infamous pool scene from Alligator a run for its money.
And although the climax is annoying because it stems from the fact that the croc drags one of the main characters to its lair rather than just killing her, a nightmarish situation that involves being stuck in the croc’s mouth makes for a pretty damn good suspenseful finale.
