Good Alligator Movie, Bad Alligator Movie…
The plan, for today, is still very much to get some reading done. It’s still early(ish), I can do it :o) But I’m also full of cold today so when I finally dragged myself out of bed, I went straight to my favourite chair and turned on the telly to see if anything on my Prime watchlist appealed. You know, something to blow the cobwebs away while I was having breakfast..
You know me, I love a good ‘creature feature’ and sometimes, even a bad one ;o) So when I saw that ‘Alligator’ was on Prime, that was my ‘breakfast telly’ sorted…
‘Alligator’ (1980)
A pet baby alligator is flushed down the toilet but survives in the city sewers, growing to an enormous size on a diet of laboratory dogs injected with growth hormones. Twelve years later and sewer workers have begun to go missing. The police are looking for a killer but were not expecting to find anything quite like this…
‘Alligator’ is one of those movies that I’ve always meant to watch but never quite managed to because, well… There so many films that some are always going to fall through the cracks. You know what I mean? Well, I finally sat down for a watch and ‘Alligator’ was great fun. It’s a film that owes a lot to ‘Jaws’ (pretty much to the extent where it’s basically ‘Jaws’ with an alligator) but has enough of its own spirit not to come off as too much of a cheap rip-off. There’s plenty of stalking/being stalked through the sewers (with resulting obligatory deaths, in your face nosy reporter…) but ‘Alligator’ takes things out into the city as well and that’s where the film really earned its money as far as I was concerned. Add a hero cop who has half his mind on his receding hairline and ‘Alligator’ is a film of chuckles and chills. I’m glad I settled on it as my first ‘breakfast film’ and immediately went for ‘Alligator 2’ when I saw that was Prime as well. But...
‘Alligator 2: The Mutation’ (1991)
A giant alligator has made its home in a city lake and must be dealt with before it expands its feeding ground.
So for me, the first movie succeeded by having the giant alligator crop up across the city , adding to the tension (especially when that little kid saw it in the swimming pool, just before he got eaten…) Here though, our giant alligator more or less stays where it is (apart from a brief excursion in the sewers) and that robs the film of a lot of what made the first one work. The alligator is in the lake? Cool, just stay out of the lake. Erm…
The supporting cast weren’t quite enough to carry it off either and to be honest, who really cares about a new housing development sub-plot when you should be concentrating on alligator carnage?
I’ll watch ‘Alligator’ again but ‘Alligator 2’? One of those films where I can say that I’ve seen it now, but there won’t be a re-watch.
You know me, I love a good ‘creature feature’ and sometimes, even a bad one ;o) So when I saw that ‘Alligator’ was on Prime, that was my ‘breakfast telly’ sorted…
‘Alligator’ (1980)
A pet baby alligator is flushed down the toilet but survives in the city sewers, growing to an enormous size on a diet of laboratory dogs injected with growth hormones. Twelve years later and sewer workers have begun to go missing. The police are looking for a killer but were not expecting to find anything quite like this…
‘Alligator’ is one of those movies that I’ve always meant to watch but never quite managed to because, well… There so many films that some are always going to fall through the cracks. You know what I mean? Well, I finally sat down for a watch and ‘Alligator’ was great fun. It’s a film that owes a lot to ‘Jaws’ (pretty much to the extent where it’s basically ‘Jaws’ with an alligator) but has enough of its own spirit not to come off as too much of a cheap rip-off. There’s plenty of stalking/being stalked through the sewers (with resulting obligatory deaths, in your face nosy reporter…) but ‘Alligator’ takes things out into the city as well and that’s where the film really earned its money as far as I was concerned. Add a hero cop who has half his mind on his receding hairline and ‘Alligator’ is a film of chuckles and chills. I’m glad I settled on it as my first ‘breakfast film’ and immediately went for ‘Alligator 2’ when I saw that was Prime as well. But...
A giant alligator has made its home in a city lake and must be dealt with before it expands its feeding ground.
So for me, the first movie succeeded by having the giant alligator crop up across the city , adding to the tension (especially when that little kid saw it in the swimming pool, just before he got eaten…) Here though, our giant alligator more or less stays where it is (apart from a brief excursion in the sewers) and that robs the film of a lot of what made the first one work. The alligator is in the lake? Cool, just stay out of the lake. Erm…
The supporting cast weren’t quite enough to carry it off either and to be honest, who really cares about a new housing development sub-plot when you should be concentrating on alligator carnage?
I’ll watch ‘Alligator’ again but ‘Alligator 2’? One of those films where I can say that I’ve seen it now, but there won’t be a re-watch.
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