Crocodile
A group of friends including Brady Turner, Claire and Duncan McKay go out on a boat trip on a lake in Southern California, but their joyful weekend turns into horror, when a giant killer crocodile searching for its stolen eggs, picks off anyone who gets in its way. Can they all escape in one piece or will they slowly and painfully fall to the mammoth reptile.
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- Cast:
- Julie Mintz , Rhett Wilkins , Harrison Young , Larry Udy , James McCauley
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Reviews
Very best movie i ever watch
Redundant and unnecessary.
It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
For the horror movie novice, here's a handy tip. Films with one-word-animal titles tend not to be Oscar worthy. Not even Golden Globe. This is why horror flicks like "Cod", "Parrot" and "Poodle" were left on the back burner when pitched to studio execs, although I believe Lionsgate is considering a 3-D re-write of "Cod", featuring Charro. "Crocodile" is the quintessential example of this phenomena.The special effects just aren't so special in this movie, although the over-the-top acting does suffice to entertain now and then. Basically the plot is as follows: ill-clad teenagers get eaten by a giant crocodile, one-by-one. Ah, that's it.Director Tobe Hooper, when given a budget and a script, is a capable filmmaker, but this time out, he probably gave up before he even started, made sure the check was real, and then got it all over with before it became too painful.The giant croc is a throwback to vintage 50's drive-in horror films. You know, back in the day when silly special effects were the norm... after all, Ray Harryhausen couldn't do EVERY horror movie now, could he? Sometimes you just gotta make do with scary hand puppets when you've no other alternative. "Croc" is modern-era version of scary hand puppets that are water repellent. Alternately enormously flexible and hard-plastic immobile, our anti-hero is one angry reptilian. Basically she's just looking for her baby (shades of Godzilla here)and is awfully cranky at those who stole her eggs.Blood spurts from plastic ketchup bottles, there's some brief nudity - if you're lucky - and some crusty bayou-type characters who owe a lot to Lon Chaney Jr.'s iconic performance as Manon in "Alligator People", although the atmosphere and location shooting isn't nearly as ominous as in that camp classic.That's the real problem here. There's just no heart in it and a bad B-grade horror flick has to have that at least, if nothing else. Fans of these type films need to have something to cheer for and if there's nothing on the screen to rally around at least the subconscious notion that the filmmakers were trying despite all odds is enough to get them by. That's simply not here in Hooper's film.The no-name cast (except Kip Adotta in a tiny role) is uninspired and seem embarrassed to be in this flick. Hooper should have told 'em to "sell it" and if he did, they weren't getting the message. The best part is seeing Adotta again and comparing how horribly he's aged since his glory years as a stand up on "The Tonight Show". Adotta's always had a sense of humor about these kind of roles and he should be used a lot more in these type of films. He's a heck of a character actor and usually quite hilarious.We can't even muster up a few more stars for the "it's so bad it's good" factor. Ed Wood at least had heart... "Crocodile" simply doesn't, no matter how many teenagers the beast devours.
Possible spoilers here! I'm giving this a five rating based mostly on the good faith of director Tobe Hooper. He's made some wonderful movies in the past and I know he still has a few good ones in there still. But this was rather disappointing. A bigger budget would have helped since most of the crocodile sequences are clearly a plastic-looking model being pulled through the water.The plot involves eight pinheads who go to get good and drunk on spring break. They stay on a houseboat in a lake where a large crocodile (supposedly over a hundred years old) lives. Mayhem ensues when the croc's eggs are destroyed by a couple of yahoos who have no other connection to the plot other than to destroy the eggs and become dinner for the croc.One of the movie's real faults is that some of the characters are just so damned obnoxious you just want them to be eaten and out of the film already. (Duncan especially!) Also the old guy who informs everyone about the crocodile and its habits who spits tobacco (at least I assume it's tobacco) after delivering every other line. This guy spits and spits and spits! Okay, we get it already. Thank you.On the plus side the women are all cute in their bikinis and it is refreshing to see that most of the crocodile effects are on-set physical effects rather than CGI (which is used minimally here). But still in some shots it's just painfully obvious a floating puppet is used for the crocodile.A subplot about one of the characters betraying one of the women actually gives this more depth than you'd expect from a low-budget creature movie.That said, it's actually still better than most drivel that airs on Sci-Fi Channel (where this turned up recently I noticed) and there are a few really good "jump" moments.Please try again, Mr. Hooper. I still think you're a good horror director.
Crocodile (2000) ** (out of 4) Direct to DVD film from director Tobe Hooper about a bunch of college students who hit the river for some sex and beer but end up being menaced by a twenty-foot croc. The film starts off okay but wears out of steam by the fifty minute mark. The characters are all very obnoxious so it's hard to care if any of them live or die. The CGI effects are among the worst I've ever seen. Hooper's direction puts this slightly above most other direct to DVD titles but the film is a long way off from Alligator.
Let me start off by reminding everyone that Tobe Hooper is a great director, who challenged cinema in the 70's and made some great movies. 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and 'Poltergiest' are both great scary movies and went some way in my decision to buy this movie, I worked out from the box it was straight to DVD, but the tag 'Directed By Tobe Hooper' had me thinking about uncovering a low budget horror gem. Well, after watching this movie I was speechless, from the terrible visual effects (note to low budget production teams, use animatronics and prosthetic materials and not CGI, it's cheaper and looks way cooler than badly done CGI and add a little charm to the movie) horrible acting (to be expected from a low budget flick most of the time) and really quite turgid direction from a once great cinematic force. The whole film reeks of turgid pointlessness. It's not even a fun movie, or so bad it's good like 'Shark Attack'.Have a copy of 'Poltergeist at hand if you do watch this. You'll need it to forgive Tobe.