Alligator

Surfing on the wave of "Jaws" the cunning Sergio Martino sniffed out a huge niche market in this firstborn "Alligator" that was shameful duplicated by the Americans one year later with Lewis Teagle's Alligator and son on, the production looking by the thematic side is well-done on costumes on the tribe, lavish scenarios, and fabulous landscape at Sri-Lanka, nonetheless who would expect about the plot? Even the latest Jaw were really bad all them without any exceptions became often repeating itself, upon this point of view Martino's Alligator is a copy of Jaw.

How it works in "Jaw" is need a resort to took place all those unfortunate tourists in danger on those calm waters, they find in gorgeous Barbara Bach's angel face an appropriate trophy girl to offer for the giant creature, as really happens on the picture, a young hero in Claudio Cassinelli to save the helpless girl, Martino imposes a superstitious African tribe that believe in a Alligator's God willing to feeding with human fresh, at last the producers and writers put a supposed greedy and heartless man in the body of Mel Ferrer, then we've perfect formula to make the audience going to frenzy.

Aside the mix of foam, latex and cardboard on the innocuous Alligator all the remainder is someway very palatable for the target public, at cavern's sequence made in Italy had a great impact in so wondrous Alligator's skull, when Barbara and Cassinelli meet a hermit father, further the producers didn't retrench the budge sunk a brand new helicopter and renting all real resort at Asia, gorgeous girls in sexy bathing suits, the happy lady and finally that stolen the show the toothless little girl with the amusing smiling, not so bad.

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First watch: 1983 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-Youtube / Rating: 5.25.

A film that I had never heard of before, found thanks to the advent of streaming movie services and not sure if that is a good thing, or bad thing. Many films tried to capitalize on the success of Jaws and the Italians made many films themselves. A lot of the time they would use sharks or mutant sharks and in the case of this film they would use either a crocodile or alligator. Who the heck knows? In the title they use gator, but they're always mentioning crocodiles, but then they kind of imply it may be a gator...so it is one or the other and definitely a mutant of some sort as the poor beast seems unable to leave the water, which both alligators and crocodiles can do!

The story, a photographer and the skinniest model go to take some shoots to help promote this new African resort. A place that lets the tourists get close with nature and the animals and is obviously not in Africa. Well, we get lots of tension building with no payoffs for the first half hour and then finally we see a couple get killed and the photographer starts making it a big deal as the hotel owner downplays it, but with virtually no proof I would have to side with the hotel owner. Then again, the idiot spent three million to build a resort in Africa, I mean why? If I had that money, that is the last thing I would do as it would take forever to see any returns on the investment! Wait, oh yeah, forgive me as I forgot I was writing about a whatever in the water killing people and you will forget too when watching this! It all builds up to a rather crazy and entertaining conclusion, but boy it takes forever to get there!

Barbara Bach of Bond girl fame and various other movies is the most notable star along with Mel Ferrer who is in so many Italian horror films you may not know the name, but you will know the face. Also a bit interesting is the little girl who I recognized from another Italian horror film, but was not sure which, then I saw her here and linked her to the girl in House By the Cemetery who tries to help good ole Bob!

So, you get a whole lot of not a lot going on in this one and then all of a sudden you have people being chomped left and right, impaling themselves, people being shot with arrows and vans crashing into the river while the crocodile or gator tries to eat the occupants making for a somewhat satisfying conclusion. Still, not enough to make that tedious first hour and ten minutes worth going through. When I saw this thing was Italian, I figured it would be bad, but a lot of fun; unfortunately, the fun is all compressed into like the final 15 minutes of the film.

For many people this is one of the worst by Sergio Martino, but I really love it. First I gotta say that I love Sergio Martino and for me he is maybe the best exploitation Italian director, better than Di Leo and Lenzi too. Big Caimano River is a real b-movie, and I say that as a compliment: a real b-movie as today nobody do anymore. It's a sort of "Jaws" rip-off, with a big alligator which scares a small village in the forest. The movie is sometime stupid, but is so funny. You can easily see that the alligator is fake, but this doesn't disturb me. Instead, I think it's almost touching: that time is over, the time of the house made fx-effects. The underwater ending sequence is fantastic. Also the truck is fake but, you know, that's b-movie. And that's what I like.

Filmed in beautiful Sri Lanka, The Great Alligator otherwise known as Alligators otherwise known as Big Alligator River has featured in several worst movies ever made lists. Honestly I think the people who included it need to watch more films, as this wouldn't likely make my bottom 500 despite still being bad.

It tells the story of a group of tourists who anger the locals and before you know it there is one angry giant alligator after them and the native people aren't very friendly either.

I can't come up with a reason folks would consider this one of the worst ever, sure it's bad but not to that degree.

It looks dated sure and the plot and pacing are really quite dire but all in all I've seen this very same thing done considerably worse.

I would certainly not recommend this to anyone, but it's not THAT bad.

The Good:

Some great nature shots

SFX aren't that bad

The Bad:

Very slow burner

Plot is a bit of a mess and gets worse the further in you go

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

I don't approve of swine swindling

Adam (As in Adam & Eve) was an idiot

Some kids bathtub toy goes on a killing spree. I mean, some ancient jungle god (in the shape of a Giant Alligator!) gets offended by a resort being built in the heart of the jungle. Then a supermodel sleeps with a native and REALLY cheeses him off! Actually, I suspect it might have been the incredibly irritating "bocka-ch-wocka" disco music that plays relentlessly through the entire film that drove the reptile to kill in the first place. The Great Alligator goes on a boring munchfest, eating more innocent natives than guilty white people and requiring that soaking wet and barely dressed shapely women be tied to rafts and offered as a sacrifice. Yeah, okay. Poor Richard Johnson plays some weirded out prophet who lives in a cave and looks like the guy from Monty Python. I kept waiting for him to run up to the camera and croak out: "It's!" at any given moment. The alligator is silly, bobbing back and forth and looking like a big rubber toy. This was obviously "Jaws" inspired, and sadly, imitation is NOT always the sincerest form of flattery. Stick with Piranha. This movie makes "Eaten Alive" look better than I originally gave it credit for.