Alligator |
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 • USA • 1980 • 91m •    • Directed by: Lewis Teague. • Starring: Robert Forster, Robin Riker, Michael V. Gazzo, Dean Jagger, Sydney Lassick, Jack Carter, Perry Lang, Henry Silva, Bart Braverman, John Lisbon Wood, James Ingersoll, Robert Doyle, Patti Jerome. • Music by: Craig Huxley.      A vicious alligator named Ramon, who was flushed into the city sewer as a baby, survives to become a 32-foot-long menace who devours animals and people alike. Ramon's so huge because of the steady diet of dead pets - treated with growth hormones - that he's fed on for 12 years. Now the tremendous brute is angry and looking for revenge. Only detective David Madison knows of Ramon's existence, and it is his task to prove to the rest of the city that a tropical beast lives in their midst. Veteran screenwriter Sayles' script finds the perfect blend of comedy and horror, making this an entertaining romp through the sewers of Chicago.
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In the beginning, a girl buys a baby alligator at the zoo (well her mother buys it for her). She names it Ramona (after the Beverly Cleary books), but that is irrelevant, sorry. Next scene, her father in a moment of frustration takes his anger out on the six inch reptile and flushes it down the toilet to its doom (actually to its growth spurt) Jump forward twenty years and into the life of detective David Madison. He and his parter have begun an investigation of a possible illegal animal experimentation in a local facility. Their search for the bodies, takes them into the sewers. Madison's parter meets his end, and it doesn't take long before the creature manages to break out. All of a sudden the city becomes the site of an enormous 'bug-hunt' for a forty foot eating machine. Nobody really knows what to do except for Madison and his new girlfriend who is a reptilian specialist.
Let me now point out right now that the most important trick to shooting a convincing monster, regardless of how much money you spend on effects is choosing your camera angles. This is something that Alligator does quite well. The beast doesn't look like a giant fabricated puppet, it looks like a scaly, fleshy reptile, actually sometimes it is. A number of wide shots were done with miniature sets and a juvenile gator about a meter in length.
Something else worth noting about Alligator which helps is that, the plot not only acknowledges its absurdity but it tries to build on that with a certain sense of humor (although Lake Placid did this a little better). Sometimes however, it gets a bit too absurd. One scene in particular is especially ridiculous. Around the ¾ point, the gator crashes a garden party, and kills about twenty people. When I say kills I don't just mean kills and eats, I mean that it kills. The way the creature chomps on one person drops him in a puddle of blood and moves onto another person is scientifically incorrect. Also the way it flattens a limo with its tail is even more ridiculous considering the shape of its backbone. Then again to be fair, Jaws also had its share of scientific inaccuracies.
Alligator does what it intends to do, which is offer campy fun in Jaws tradition. Considering what has come out since, the film actually works even better. From the bowels of the city to the bowels of a giant reptilians digestive track, Alligator is weirdquirky and occasionally bloody ride, which will sustain viewers for a good hour and a half.
Review by Samiam3 from the Internet Movie Database.
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