Coccodrillo

Totally stupid--in fact laughably inept-- remake of JAWS with a less than menacing looking crocodile, who can destroy whole villages with his tail--eating people in small villages, until a group of locals hunt the thing down a la the JAWS finale. Incredibly cheap effects are totally ludicrous, making this whole movie hilarious. The scenes with the croc destroying whole villages are just too funny for description. There always seems to be someone vomiting blood in these scenes as well. Try to find a frame where someone ISN'T. For camp lovers only...others will be totally put off by the total ineptness of this production.

Even though "Crocodile" is over a quarter of a century old, the film opens with footage that is frighteningly reminiscent to drama we witnessed on television during that devastating Tsunami a couple of years ago on Christmas. Although here the hurricane is supposedly nature's subtle way of saying 'Stop destroying the earth!", and the gigantic waves subsequently bring along an unwelcome visitor with big teeth and a monstrous appetite. The crocodile wondrously adapts to the open sea quite quickly and goes on a relentless killing spree. When his wife and daughter get eaten during a day at the beach, surgeon Anthony Akam quits his job at the hospital and vows to destroy the primitive reptile. It's really cute and charming how this Thai/South-Korean production desperately wants to imitate the American produced creature-features of that period. Girls in minuscule bathing suits parading around the beach and dancing to horrible disco music, cheap English dubbing and typical slang in the dialog… I swear, if all the cast-members weren't Asian, I would think the film was set in Miami Beach! "Crocodile" certainly isn't a bad time-waster if you have, like me, a soft spot for all the cheap and nasty rip-offs that were released to cash in on the massive success of Spielberg's summer blockbuster "Jaws". The effects are pretty lousy, but the fake croc looks reasonably menacing as long as it doesn't start chewing. The scene where the killer crocodile is responsible for the destruction of an entire seaside village and its population is a true blast! That's exactly what I like about this these rip-offs, by the way… They always exaggerate to the nth degree and add randomly irrelevant stuff, like for example the explanation that the croc is a mutation generated through endless nuclear experiments at the sea bottom. Where the hell does that suddenly comes from? There are some really strong moments in "Crocodile" (the two attacks against children) but also several boring and pointlessly overlong stuff (for example, the entire chase at sea in good old Jaws tradition is dull and could have been cut). This puppy is rare and practically impossible to find, so my advice would be to only search fanatically if you're a crocodile-horror freak. On the other hand, the sight of a fully grown buffalo dying between the cheeks of a croc-monster totally justified the price of the purchase for me.

This is the best Korean movie ever made about a giant killer crocodile--and also the worst. I suspect that if they ever DO make another Korean giant crocodile though, this will no longer be the best, but it should remain the worst for a LONG time. This movie obviously is a rip-off of "Jaws", but so was the Italian "Great White" (which actually received a court injunction against it in the US), so was "Grizzly", so was "Tentacles", so was "Big Alligator River". All of these films are much better "Jaws" rip-offs than this one. The problem here is that they obviously didn't have the budget to make a cheap SOV slasher flick, let alone a much more expensive giant beastie movie, so the movie doesn't even achieve a basic suspension of disbelief. They show a crocodile and they show people who kind of look like they're being eaten, but never in the same shot. Frankly, the only thing this movie even semi-successfully rips-off from "Jaws" is John William's score (which they play a legally-actionable synthesizer variation of).

The plot involves a workaholic Korean doctor on vacation who loses his wife and young daughter to the title monster and makes it his life's work to hunt it down. He is aided by a scientist and a boat owner (whose names in Korean probably mean "Hooper" and "Quint"). You get the idea--it's "Jaws" basically but made with the amount of money you might find beneath the cushions of your couch.

Due no doubt to its criminally low budget, this movie relies A LOT on close-ups--of the crocodile, of course, which was obviously real but I suspect not all that gigantic, but also in a lot of other strange places. There is a sex scene, for instance, that consists of only a single shot of the woman's face (at least, I think it was a sex scene--it's possible she was just having a REALLY good shower). Which brings us to the sorry lack of female nudity (and, no, the eight-year-old girl doesn't count). This is never a problem in a good movie like "Jaws", or even a decent one like "Big Alligator River", but it renders this one even more worthless. If you see only one Korean giant crocodile movie this year, you have no choice but to see this one I guess, but god knows I wouldn't advise it!

Everything to make this film belong to the Z connection: The red lights -eyes of the crocodile are great. They had so little budget that we can see the same people drowning several times.

The scene where the crocodile cut palm trees with its tail is wonderful.

Moreover on the video I possess, the film is not entire and cut just after the ship explosion so there is no end (a wonderful open end) which adds 20% of quality to this movie. Dialogues are incredible as well. 10/10.

Rating No stars out of 5

Tiny Tim is sent to destroy a man-eating crocodile loose on a harbor killing beachers in this animal killer Jaws rip-off complete with animal attacks, gory violence and of course the crocodile which looks more like the shark in Jaws. Universal even took legal action over the film. Terrible direction and poor location-shooting. If you want better Jaws rip-offs go see Orca, Grizzly or Alligator instead of Crocodile.

Followed by the inept Crocodile II.