Director: Sergio Martino
Year: 1979
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: Il fiume del grande caimano, Big Alligator River, Alligator
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
Heading into a jungle preserve, a photographer helping to showcase a newly opening resort finds that the connection between a series of strange disappearances ofr the natives is tied to a local legend of a monstrous crocodile living in the area and teams up with the resort staff to stop it.
Review:
This here was a fun and rousing creature feature. One of the better features here is the enjoyable over-the-top preparations shown here for what the resort has to go through in order to stay in business. Although it's never stated at all, the idea of the crocodile being present with the way they have to feed the pigs to the crocs and putting up the fences to keep them out of the tourists' swimming areas gives a great hint for what's to come. That is put on display nicely with the standout attacks here, from the night-time ambush on the couple in the water sneaking off together while being overlaid by the tribal ceremony which makes for a wild sequence, the failed strike on the guests underwater which is stopped by the protective nets and the frantic attack on the group coming back to camp where its strikes are quite enjoyable.
That this is done in conjunction with the connection to the local tribe, which not only gives this the fun backstory with their stories involving native spirits living in the river taking the form of the huge crocodile but also has this one maintaining the funkiness of their tribal ceremonies against the slicker society of the resort guests. Their stories and rituals that are shown here offer a great deal of influence for their actions later on which gives the final half a ton of action, from kidnapping various members of the resort group to launching attacks on the remaining staff at the resort and killing off the survivors of an accident caused by the crocodile as they try to seek safety, one of the film's best sequences. Alongside the amazing miniature work for the crocodile and the destruction it leaves behind, these here hold it up over it's few minor flaws.
The main one of these issues is the back-and-forth nature of the native tribe over how they're presented. While they initially seem like the friendly, good-hearted group of helpers, the way they flip into being ruthless and bloodthirsty as the film goes on is quite an unusual change which is done plainly for outrageous reasons that don't really make much sense. The motivations here, where they misinterpret the actions of the crocodile as being the physical incarnation of their God coming back for revenge against the hotel, make no sense as they can use the croc to get what they want by letting it eat the interlopers and comes as a total turnaround from how they were before. It also causes this one to have quite the unusual finale which has them going into yet another quick flop by ignoring everything and being overjoyed and welcoming just moments after intending to kill them which is a rather odd point to hammer this whole point across. As well, despite the good effects work on the model croc, the scenes shot using a live miniature interacting in a bathtub with other miniatures looks really painful and at the opposite end of the spectrum. Otherwise, there isn't a whole lot really wrong here.
Overview: ***1/2/5
While it does have a few minor issues here with the way this one manages to treat a few of it's minor elements, so much more is made out of the enjoyable elements here. That it manages to be as entertaining as it is makes this a fine choice for cheesy creature feature fans or those that have a fondness for this style, while those that aren't into this kind of film should avoid overall.
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