Alligator

The best Corman monster flick Roger never made.

This great B-movie unspools like a Sergio Leone revenge tale. Big mean Daddy flushes daughter's baby gator, Ramon, down the toilet. Sixteen years later, Ramon has grown up to be a 36-foot mutated maneater stalking the mean sewers of the Windy City. Daughter has grown up to become a 5'-4" herpetologist for the Chicago Zoo. You can just hear the haunting whistle of an Ennio Morricone soundtrack as the showdown looms.

This monster flick's pedigree is a purebred B, written by Corman alumnus John Sayles (fresh from 1978's 'Piranha', on his way to 1981's 'The Howling') and directed by veteran Lewis Teague, who cut his directing and editing teeth on such Corman classics as 'The Lady In Red', 'Cockfighter', 'Crazy Mama', and the immortal 'Death Race 2000'.

Casting for 'Alligator' was made in Cult Heaven, with Tarantino-fave Robert Forster as the bad-luck cop who gets between the girl and her gator. Future 'Stepmonster' Robin Riker makes her movie debut as the reptile expert. '50s sci-fi veteran Dean Jagger (looking, swear-to-God, like the dancing octogenarian in the Six Flags commercials) plays the dastardly industrialist who kills puppies and inadvertently creates the monster. Henry Silva seems to have fun skewering his cinema psycho persona. Even Hollywood tough-guy Mike Mazurki makes a cameo as the villain's gatekeeper.

Injokes abound, with winks and nudges to infamous sewer rats Harry Lime and Ed Norton. Romantic foreplay includes heartfelt talks about male pattern baldness. The gator seems to have a Jones for men in blue. And Chicago can only be saved by the time-honored, foolproof solution of trapping oneself in an enclosed space with the monster and a timebomb.

After 24 years, we rabid fans are still waiting for the obvious sewer creature clash, 'Ramon vs. C.H.U.D.' Keep dreaming ...

This movie is the best damn giant alligator movie I've ever seen. They just don't make then like this anymore. Featuring very cool pre-CGI animatronic fx & a real live alligator. And any time a lil' kid gets eaten by the monster in a horror movie, you know that they're not messin' around.

What a classic. I will admit that the main reason I watch so many horror movies is mainly because I can make fun of them. I bought Alligator from a video store that was going out of business. I vaguely remembered the scene where the alligator crashes the birthday party from when I was a little kid. Anyway, I remembered enough to pick it up, so I was expecting another movie that I could sit there and trash, but once I saw John Sayles's name in the writing credits, I assumed that I would be in for something more. Instead of getting a movie that I could laugh at, I got one that laughs at itself for being a horror movie (about 16 years before that was cool). The script is super-sharp, with witty lines and the direction is tight. We also get a great, charismatic Robert Forster playing the role of the burn-out cop and Henry Silva makes a HILARIOUS cameo as a hunter. I don't know if his performance was intentionally bad or if he was just trying to be that bad, but either way, it worked. I loved his character and the funny noises that he makes. I'm sure it had to be intentional.

John Sayles has done some great horror scripts. Just check out Piranah and The Howling (the first one). He scores another knockout with Alligator and it put Lake Placid to shame. What that movie seemed to try so hard at (making a "parody" of sorts) Alligator pulls off with ease. The special-effects (of course they're dated by now) are actually really well-done for the time and, in many ways, a helluva lot more convincing than most of the CGI crap that we're force-fed today.

If you can find this movie, I highly reccommend it. No, it's not scary, but it is very entertaining and a good time all the way through.

Continuing the trend of the killer animal genre made popular by "Jaws", "Alligator" is thoroughly enjoyable all the way. We can thank screenwriter John Sayles, then a writer for hire (his other genre credits during the period being "Piranha" and "The Howling") for its wit and ambition, and Lewis Teague ("Cujo", "Cat's Eye") for the efficient, right-to-the-point direction and genuine thrills.

It exploits the old urban legend of "alligators in the sewers" for maximum entertainment, telling the tale of a gator named Ramon flushed down the drain as an infant and making its home in the Chicago sewer. It grows to mammoth proportions after having feasted on dead dogs that had been injected with a growth hormone by a dubious pharmaceutical company. It's up to dedicated police detective, David Madison (the likable Robert Forster, in a perfect Everyman role) to find and destroy the out-of-control beast when other attempts by the police prove to be unsuccessful.

Sayles shows here that the trend of referencing bits of pop culture most assuredly did not begin with "Scream", as here he makes jokes referring to Ed Norton, the character on 'The Honeymooners' who worked for the sewer department, and Orson Welles's character from the classic "The Third Man". He gets some great chuckles from some of his lines, and also adding to the humour is the performance of Henry Silva, as an egomaniacal big game hunter. Adding sex appeal is husky voiced redhead Robin Riker as the movies' reptile expert. A wonderful supporting cast includes swaggering Dean Jagger as the corporate creep, Bart Braverman as the pesky reporter, Perry Lang as an eager beaver young cop, original "Lolita" Sue Lyon as a TV reporter, Sydney Lassick as a pet store owner, Jack Carter as the sleazy mayor, and the hilarious, raspy voiced Michael Gazzo as Madisons' boss on the police force. Other familiar faces in small roles include Angel Tompkins, Royce D. Applegate, Simmy Bow, Stan Haze, Micole Mercurio, John Goff, and Mike Mazurki.

Among the touches Sayles and Teague bring to the material are the idea of the gator eating its way up the socio-economic ladder, heading for the man who created it in the first place, and a willingness to treat many characters as fair game, even children. The sequence where the gator (brought to life by more convincing special effects than usual) first emerges into the outside world is a corker, as is the big set piece where it runs amok at a wedding; there are some amazing stunts during this sequence. The pacing never flags and Forster and Riker are an endearing main couple; he plays exactly the kind of hero for whom WANTS to root.

Any monster movie fan tired of the routine cheese fests, featuring animated creatures, that come out nowadays, is strongly encouraged to check out this solidly entertaining little flick. They won't be disappointed.

Followed 11 years later by a sequel.

Eight out of 10.

I wasn't expecting much of a movie when I sat down to watch this one. I was very pleasantly surprised. With a script by John Sayles, committed performances by leads Robert Forster and Robin Riker, and a happy company of interesting performers, including Michael Gazzo, Dean Jagger, Henry Silva, Sue Lyon, and Mike Mazurki, it wasn't just a cheap JAWS rip-off about trying to stop an alligator flushed down the toilet eighteen years earlier, grown huge on medical wastes and dogs, but something of a screwball comedy, with dialogue at once witty and natural.

It also has an emotional journey. When we first meet police detective Forster, he's depressed because he had lost a partner in a shootout, and his hairline is receding. By the end, he has accomplished his goal, and if his hairline is going, Miss Riker content to be with him.

John Sayles seems to have used his fee from writing this to fund his directorial debut, THE RETURN OF THE SECAUCUS SEVEN. That's a win-win, so far as I am concerned.