There’s no shortage of treats for obsessive fans of over-sized, monstrous killer croc movies on the DVD shelves at the moment. Thanks largely to the inexhaustible Sci-Fi Channel, you currently have the opportunity to pick and choose from the likes of SUPERGATOR, DINO CROC, LAKE PLACID 2 and BLACK WATER, in addition to slightly older fare like the two CROCODILE movies and, for those fond of vintage 80’s Italian genre flicks, the KILLER CROCODILE duo from Fulvia Films.
Most of these films are indeed a croc…of the brown, smelly excrement variety. Stewart Raffill’s CROC is better than average, distinguished by its very attractive, unusual backdrop (it was a Thailand-USA co-production) and a satisfyingly large body count. Set your expectations to “low” (as opposed to the usual setting of “Beyond-Steven-Seagal-Low” for this type of flick), ignore an abundance of cue-card-style line delivery and CROC may surprise you by being…mildly good.
An American and his nephew oversee an array of crocodile stunts and basketball-playing elephants at a Thai animal park, where complaints about the conditions have attracted the attention of local authorities. The standard horny-young-couple-killed-while-making-out-in-the-water sequence (copyright Steven Spielberg, 1975) heralds the deadly presence of a 20 foot croc that has migrated due to Global Warming. Top-billed Michael Madsen, who has a steel leg and doesn’t show up until the half-way mark – and then doesn’t speak until an hour in – has been tracking the croc for nine months. Sub-plots involve animal activists, a hot Thai girl love interest for the nephew and a bunch of amateur croc-hunters attracted by a lucrative reward.
CROC’s croc, often conveyed via underwater p.o.v. shots, acts a lot like the shark from JAWS with its decidedly uncharacteristic habit of grabbing victims and dragging them through the water at high speed. The inevitably CG monster shots range from effective to enjoyably hokey and there’s a surprising, pleasingly heartless moment in which the croc eats an annoying kid right after someone unintentionally foreshadows the event by yelling “Let the croc eat him!” And so say all of us…
It’s a good looking flick and technically a cut above the standard straight to DVD / Sci-Fi produced creature feature. As a bonus, the dialogue is often of the mirth-making variety, to wit : “Every time my wife gets me back in the temple, something like this convinces me it’s a waste of time…” There’s a minimum of dead spots and the attack scenes are mostly up to snuff : notably a bloody swimming pool assault capped by the realization that the survivor has retrieved his friend’s severed head in his fishing net.
-Steven West
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- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
