Bad CGI Gator

Six thirty year old college students go on spring break to a run down isolated cabin in a swamp. Who wouldn't want that experience? They must have booked the cabin a year in advance to get such a great place. Not understanding that spring break isn't the end of the semester, these future student loan debt relief recipients toss their school laptops into the swamp. A crocodile still recovering from shock that anyone would willingly occupy that cabin gets zapped by the shorting out laptop batteries and is magically transformed in a genuinely bad CGI rendering.

The bad CGI crocodile is bad, really bad, yet miles better than the acting. It's indescribably bad. Exceeded only by the dialog. It's indescribably indescribably bad. Ten stars for the crocodile. Minus five stars for the crocodile taking so long to do the audience wants in eliminating the cast. The longest hour you will spend being "entertained". Five stars.

Of course with a title such as "Bad CGI Gator", then this movie was without a doubt a movie that I just had to sit down and watch. And when I saw that it was Full Moon Features that made the movie, my expectations went from none to some. Needless to say that I had never heard about the movie, prior to stumbling upon it by random chance.

The storyline is pretty straightforward, if not actually rather generic, for a movie about young people at a lakeside resort where a killer alligator is prowling. The movie never does take itself overly serious, so writer Zalman Band did actually put together a script and storyline that proved to be making fun of itself and being super cheesy, and that made it all the more fun to watch.

I wasn't familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list, and that is something I enjoy when I sit down to watch a movie. And I will say that they had a good cast ensemble, despite the fact that I didn't like most of the characters at all. But they performed quite well in bringing the characters to life on the screen.

The majority of the character gallery in "Bad CGI Gator" is really horrible, but I mean that in a good way. I am sure that writer Zalman Band did that on purpose; making the characters into caricatures of today's youth, with their pathetic addiction to social media and mobile phones, and the way they talk and act. The only two non-annoying characters in the movie was Sam (played by Michael Bonini) and Hope (played by Maddie Lane). So thumbs up to Zalman Band for that accomplishment.

Just as the majority of the characters were insanely annoying, as was their dialogue. No surprise there. But again, thumbs up to writer Zalman Band for that accomplishment.

You get to see a lot of things that you never have seen before, nor thought you would ever get to see, such as an alligator instantaneously grow in size because it gets electrocuted, a flying alligator, an alligator swallowing a grown adult in on gulp, an alligator burping.

The title of the movie delivers exactly what it promises, because the CGI animated alligator looks bad. But it is so bad that it is campy, fun and goofy to look at. And you can't help but laugh at how bad it actually looks.

"Bad CGI Gator" is a movie that is campy and cheesy enough to actually make for a fun viewing. However, you're not in for anything grand here. Nor is it a movie that warrants more than just a single viewing.

My rating of director Danny Draven's 2023 movie "Bad CGI Gator" lands on a five out of ten stars.

This was a movie that I got the chance to see thanks to Laura from Scandal Coactive. This was a Full Moon film that when I saw the title, I knew this was going to be outrageous. Without watching this, I had a feeling this would be in line with the modern Full Moon films, which I'm not always the biggest fan of. I'm still shocked that I got the chance to review movies from this company so I jumped on the chance.

Synopsis: six college students get a cabin in the swamplands of Georgia. They decide to throw their school laptops in a nearby lake in an act of youthful defiance, which unknowingly turns an alligator into a dreaded and insatiable CGI creature.

We start this off with Jim (Lee Fealy) seeing a sign about not fishing in this lake. He ignores it, pulling it out of the ground and dropping it in the water. The reason is that there is an alligator living here. He sees the animal and it's not big. He makes a comment about it needing to get bigger.

It is then that we meet our group of characters. They are coming to Chad's (Ben VanderMey) uncle's cabin. With him is his best friend, Pearce (Cooper Drippe) and his stepsister Hope (Maddie Lane). Chad and she do not get along. It was Hope's mother wanting them to be friends so she was pushed to come. Chad also brings his girlfriend, Sarah (Rebecca Stoughton). She is best friends with Pearce's girlfriend of Paisley (Sarah Buchanan). Also with them is Sam (Michael Bonini). He is bullied by the group, but he has a crush on Hope.

Paisley and Sarah want to be influencers. They don't bring much to the table in sticking out with their content. It is generic. Them along with Chad and Pearce are 'typical Gen-Z' and annoying. Sam wants to fit in, but he's a nice guy. Hope is also different from the rest of the group.

As the synopsis said, Sarah comes up with an idea of tossing all their laptops in the lake for a TikTok. Sam doesn't want to do this as he has short stories he's written on his, but he succumbs to peer pressure. Hope refuses. The batteries from the computers create an electrical current that changes this alligator into a large monster. It can also now float. It traps our group in the cabin and picks them off one by one.

That is where I'll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I'll start is that runs under an hour long. We don't get much in the way of character development, but we also don't need this. This gives us enough set up until the alligator gets changed. It is from there that our characters are then killed off until the climax.

Now that I've given that, this is a comedy first. This is also a movie that we are meant to dislike all the characters except for Hope and Sam. She is the most 'normal' woman of the group and thinks for herself. Sam wants to fit in with the jocks, but the more we see how he is treated, that might not be the case. This feels like a throwback to the 1980s, just using modern slang for Pearce, Chad, Paisley and Sarah. They feel like stereotypical jerks. It makes sense why we're rooting for the monster.

I did want to then pull in the acting here. Despite my not liking most of the cast, they do what they're supposed to for their characters. Buchanan, Stoughton, VanderMey and Drippe are all good looking. They fit the characters they're supposed to be. They also get a response out of me which is what I ask for when it comes to acting so this is well done. If I was going to blame anything, it would be the writing to not give them any depth. This is supposed to be a popcorn movie so it is fine. I thought that Lane and Bonini are solid though as our heroes. Fealy is also fine in his minor role. If anything, I wish they would have brought him back in the end. Not a major issue though, it would just be a fitting way to end it.

There isn't more to say about the story or acting so let's finish with filmmaking. If you couldn't tell from the title, the alligator is all CGI. It adds to the comedy, I'll give it that. My problem though is that this is trying to intentionally be a bad movie. I'm not a fan of that. I know there are those that are. I'm not the target audience. I did think that the practical aftereffects of attacks was solid. The cinematography was fine. I did love the setting. It is also funny that the cabin is owned by the type of person that it is. That adds comedy there and makes sense with the weapons they find. Other than that, the soundtrack was fine. It did fit with the vibe of the movie.

In conclusion, this is a fun, low budget shut off your brain type movie. This leans into being absurd. I did think that this was fine in the sense that we have a group of mostly unlikable characters to kill off. The CGI here is intentionally bad. The bright spot would be the setting and the cinematography there. I'm not the target audience though. If you want a movie that is bad on purpose, I'd recommend this especially with friends and drinks. This also feels in line with today's Full Moon films.

My Rating: 3.5 out of 10.

It did what it was supposed to do, it was clearly a B movie that was a parody of B movies. I thought that the lead up to the actual action was interesting, and the acting was both good and oddly bad, but it seemed to fit with the overall ambiance of the film. The terribly done CGI was actually funny, and the play on movie tropes (i.e. The lake setting, teen horror tropes, and over the top gore) was hilarious.

It was actually better than other parody films, such as sharknado, but still was able to maintain that campy feel that you'd get with Friday the 13th or Texas chainsaw massacre. I would recommend a watch if you're bored on a plane or after a few beers.

12th opus in Danny Draven´s directing career, filled with naive irony and parody/self-parody as the typically misguided B-movie spoof is, but instead of falling face first into the routinary trappings of "self-aware" comedies (that are everything but that) this one creates a schizophrenic and bland pseudo-satire of the genre with more formal considerations than usual, less malicious than Brett Kelly with his sardonic sharks, but still delivering blows to every stereotype, convention and trope of the genre. In the end, this is still a satire that lacks focus and a concrete objective that can give it a sense.

Featuring goofy and telegraphed comedy that comes out of a decidedly malnourished and elemental script done with intentional simplicity, with the nauseatingly stereotypical characters that parody the ones from the industrial horror movie formula. You can trace back the evolution of the subgenre as far back as the italian Jaws rip off Killer Crocodile (1989) with it´s lethargic anti-adventure, going through Lake Placid (1999) with winks that demolished the fourth wall and a comedic tone, but perhaps the heaviest influence is Tobe Hooper´s schlock flick Crocodile (2000), taking the concept of giving the main killer animal a richer personality than it´s human leads, while expanding upon the genre game Hooper played with by exaggerating the defects of the way of representing the animal on screen, stretching it's inverisimilitude to cartoonish levels. If Tobe made his Crocodile crash through walls then Draven made his Gator ring the doorbell. The film is filled with touches like these, such as when the Gator levitates via his special effects superpowers and eats a jock. Images that undoubtedly tickled the fancy of a master of surreal fantasy like Charles Band.

Speaking of Band, this movie finally goes after the overabundance of CGI in mainstream cinema (and why not, in productions by competing low budget companies too) he often complains about. However, it comes off as half baked, every solid attempt at creativity is dulled by a wonky pace and an off beat tone. It only slightly uses irony to satirize the state of popular cinema but one could argue that Asylum and other companies with their outlandish mockbusters are already Hollywood's biggest parody makers, making Bad CGI Gator a graceless deviation in the Full Moon catalog.