Director: Michael Houston King
Year: 2025
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: Lake Jessup: Bonecrusher's Revenge
Genre: Alligator/Crocodile
Plot:
After a series of vicious attacks, the mayor of a small Florida town wants to hire a vengeful ex-con with intimate knowledge of the situation to hunt and kill the vicious alligator in the local lake, killing anyone who comes into contact with it and trying to save the community from the creature.
Review:
This was a decent enough if somewhat problematic creature feature. Among the better elements of this one comes from the idea of making the surrounding drama of the situation to make for a worthwhile setup. The multitude of backstories involved here makes for a sympathetic hero on the hunt for the killer gator, from his prison incarceration and subsequent release, the family drama with his daughter about to go into the military, and the promise made to the family of those he was working with when he got sent to prison, makes everything feel far more impactful than just going out finding the vicious alligator. As it’s mostly centered around the race to get the gator killed so that his personal life can be squared away, the drama of the situation is far more front and center as it gets closer to the timeline imposed on him to stop the creature. Those are handled with some intriguing gator attacks that are quite enjoyable, featuring the practical gator prop interacting with the victims in graphic means, giving this kind of interaction a fun enough time.
There are some issues with this one that hold it down. The main issue here is that, while the series of dramatic interactions that give him a worthwhile series of reasons to stop the gator also cause this one to have a seriously sluggish and dragged-out pacing. The first hour is spent more on the backstory buildup about why he’s so troubled after being released from prison, the struggle to come to terms with the successful member of the community who has capitalized on screwing him over, and the need to sort everything out makes for a generally dull time here. With hardly any action in this section, it is spent on these outside factors, which makes this section come off far less interesting than it should, considering the topic at hand. Moreover, the final half is just a mess with some egregiously awful choices to signal he’s become obsessed with revenge that really makes us turn against him for his actions, and even the big confrontation with the gator is so underwhelming that there are genuine attacks that last longer, making it seem questionable why it didn't happen sooner. These are enough to lower this one overall.
Overview: **.5/5
An intriguing enough but ultimately flawed creature feature, this one has enough to make it worthwhile, but most of the issues here might make it problematic for those who are most interested in it. Those with an appreciation for this kind of genre fare or who don’t mind the drawbacks present will want to give it a shot, while most others out there should heed extreme caution.
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