Les dents du bayou

"Ragin Cajun Redneck Gators" (aka "Alligator Alley") is one of those movies. You know, those kind of monstrous creature features, that just have way too awful effects to come off as properly being good entertainment.

The story is about a young girl named Avery (played by Jordan Hinson) who returns to the swamps of Louisiana to her family after having been away for college. The ongoing feud between the Robichaud and Doucette families is still blazing, and things doesn't take a turn for the better when the Robichaud family's failed moonshine brew turns the local alligator residents into mutated giants hungry for human flesh.

Essentially the story did have some good things to it here and there, but it was all just brutally slaughtered with the worst CGI alligators ever to make it to the screen. I mean, seriously, these are without a doubt amongst the top five of worst creature CGI effects I have ever seen.

The characters in the movie are painfully stereotypical to the point where it is starting to become embarrassing to bear witness to.

As for the acting, well, for a movie of this particular genre and type, then it was alright. Nothing mind-blowingly impressive though, mind you.

And as if giant, mutated man-killing alligators wasn't enough, wait to you find out what happens later on, it just goes from being silly to downright stupid. Trust me...

"Ragin Cajun Redneck Gators" is the type of movie that you will suffer through once, out of sheer boredom, and never to make a return trip to watch it ever again. There just wasn't anything worthwhile to support a second watching - unless you count horrible CGI creatures as worthwhile, of course.

After 4 years away from home while attending college, a young woman named "Avery Doucette" (Jordan Hinson) returns to her family in the Louisiana bayou one day prior to alligator hunting season. What nobody knows is that a local family headed by "Wade Robichaud" (Thomas Francis Murphy) has been making moonshine using a strange new chemical which ends up contaminating several batches which are subsequently dumped into the swamp. This causes the local gator population to mutate into extremely large and savage creatures of a type never seen before--and their feeding season on humans has just begun. Throw in a deadly family feud between the Doucettes and the Robichauds and things are about to get deadly in the bayou. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that it's the comedy-more than the action, horror or suspense-that makes this film even remotely interesting as the other qualities just mentioned are almost non-existent. Likewise, the extremely ridiculous ending certainly didn't help much either. In any case, if not for the aforementioned humor, I would have scored this film a bit lower but as things are I rate it as just slightly below average.

The movie takes itself a bit too seriously.

I would have loved if anyone in the film had shown the audience just how ridiculous what was happening was and then let the film run with it. This should have been more of a comedy, or at least a parody, but instead the film stays in the "no we are making a horror movie" lane and never shifts out of it.

CGI was crap too, another reason they should have acknowledged the silliness of it all.

(Still fun to see Jordan Danger (Zoe from 'Eureka') in something else. Good actress. Terrible film. I have no idea how/why she chose THIS film, excpet maybe she was under some sort of obligation left over from her contract with SYFY?)

Bottomline, miserable. I don't know what was worse, the story, the way all the scenes were filmed, the alligator that looked like it was cut from a video game, the acting that was dreadful, or the quoting... 1-2/10

RELEASED TO TV IN 2013 and directed by Griff Furst, "Ragin' Cajun Redneck Gators" (aka "Alligator Alley") takes place in the Louisiana bayous when Avery (Jordan Hinson) returns from college (indoctrinated by liberalism, of course) to her redneck homestead where her kin are still feuding with a neighboring family. While she secretly dates the handsome son of the enemy (John Chriss), literal red-necked gators attack, mutated by bad moonshine that was poured into the swamp. But something even worse starts happening.

The title keys off that this is a campy, silly monster movie and not to be taken seriously, although there's some semi-serious dramatics and horrifics. Anyone wanting solemn horror should go to the Exit now. Jordan Hinson as the protagonist is a major attraction as she's winsome and all-around easy on the eyes. There's a little bit of "The Alligator People" (1959) thrown in to keep things interesting. Bottom Line: It's not great, but it's mildly entertaining as an amusing creature feature. Just remember: If the rednecks don't get ya... the gators will.

THE MOVIE RUNS 88 minutes and was shot in St. Amant & Baton Rouge, Louisiana. WRITERS: Keith Allan, Rafael Jordan & Delondra Williams.

GRADE: C+