| Alligator Released: 1980 MPAA Rating: R Genre: Predatory Animal Nuts and Bolts: Four little midgets, a dwarf, an elf and a warrior travel across Middle-Earth to relinquish an evil mystical ring before the dastardly villain Sauron can get his grimy hands on it and plunge all of reality into eternal darkness. Or something like that. That's what the back of the video box said anyway. Summary: It's 1968 and a little girl named Marisa Kendall owns a pet baby alligator. But her father is a pedantic little fuckhole who gets his jollies off by depriving little girls of their little snappers. So one day while Marisa is still in school, Pop flushes the thing down the toilet and later tells her that it died. Twelve years later: The main character of this story is New York City police detective David Madison. Madison used to be a cop in St. Louis, Missouri until an unfortunate incident when he failed to protect his partner from being shot to death during an incident at the Baldwin Hotel. Rather than reprimand Madison for his dereliction, the SLPD instead decided to transfer him to New York and sweep the whole matter under the rug. Kind of reminds me of the Catholic Archdiocese. Anyway, David goes to Luke Gutchel's pet store to buy a dog. He learns that a number of dogs in the New York area have been turning up dead. Soon after, he receives a call from his superior, Chief Clark about an incident down at the city water works. Apparently the severed leg of a sewer worker named Ed Norton was discovered floating on top of the sludge. The Police of course are dumbfounded. They also begin finding the remains of some of the afore-mentioned dogs floating around the same area. Shortly after this, pet-guy Luke Gutchel heads out in his truck and picks up a poor abandoned pooch off the side of the road. He takes the mutt (as well as a truck full of others) to the Slade Pharmaceutical plant. Scientist Arthur Helms uses stray puppies in his research tests to try and develop a synthetic growth hormone. Taking Guthchel's supply, he gives him the corpses of dogs that he had already used in his experiments. Gutchel's job is to take the bodies down to the sewers and dump them into the water. After climbing down a service ladder to make sure all of the darling little cadavers are properly floating belly up, a large fucking alligator springs from the murky water and eats Gutchel! Like Norton, Gutchel's remains re-surface at the water treatment facility (The sewers and water drainage pipes are all inter-connected so its feasible for material from one to easily get to the other). Detective Madison inspects Gutchel's remains and determines that he has had dealings with Slade Pharmaceuticals. He drives over there to question Arthur Helms. Helms denies everything that could possibly incriminate the company and claims that all of his test animals come directly from the Humane Society. When the resources run out, they are forced to halt progress (Yeah right. And I've got a 12-inch pecker). Later that day, Chief Clark and David Madison hold a press conference to discuss the recent deaths. It's a useless venture really, since nobody seems to have any kind of information that would satisfy the tabloid vultures. One particular reporter named Thomas Kemp really tries to stick it to Madison by bringing up the St. Louis affair. Madison curtly dodges the question and the press conference ends. So now Madison decides to attack this situation head on and go into the sewers to see what's going on down there. He thinks maybe there is a serial killer on the loose who has been dumping his victims into the sewer. He goes looking for volunteers, but nobody wants to work with him. They all know that David's partners don't have a very long life expectancy. But one young cop named Jim Kelley decides to volunteer to help David; mostly because he doesn't have shit-else to do. Madison and Kelley go down into the sewers and start poking around. They shine their flashlights everywhere X-Files style and slop and sludge through an ocean of #2. Before long the alligator wakes up and catches the scent of fresh meat. It starts chasing them down one of the tunnels and David gets a pretty good look at it. He scrambles up one of the service hatches, but Kelley is a little too slow to follow him. The gator latches on to Kelley's leg and drags him down into the drink. Madison is now forced to return to headquarters and embarrassingly admit to Chief Clark that he lost another partner. David is taken to the hospital just to make sure that he is okay. While relaying his story to Clark, reporter Thomas Kemp pops in to the room. Madison tells Kemp to go fuck himself and refuses to tell him shit about what went on in the sewer. So Kemp goes down to the nurses' station to bug them. One of the nurses leaks the fact that David was going on about alligators in the sewers. Kemp thinks Madison is crazy, but he also knows that he has latched on to a great story. Kemp takes it upon himself to go down into the sewers and check the story out on his own. But as he's taking pictures of various pieces of debris, the gator rises up from behind him and gulps him down like a popcorn shrimp. Kemp's camera drops and begins automatically snapping pictures of the reporter being chewed up. Chief Clark meanwhile believes Madison's story about alligators in the sewer. They decide to consult with herpetologist Marisa Kendall. Yes, THAT Marisa Kendall - the same chick whose gator was dumped into the sewer twelve years ago. Kendall doesn't believe the story, as an alligator would not be able to survive in the sewer without sunlight and suitable nourishment. But Madison sticks to his story and explains that not only did the animal survive, but also it is twice the size that a normal alligator should be. By now, Kemp's camera has been found and his pictures developed. They can no longer disguise the issue and the story leaks to the press quicker than hellfire. Madison even makes an off-color remark about Kemp finally getting what he always wanted - his name on the front page. Even Marisa Kendall goes on television and confirms that what they are dealing with now is an actual alligator. So the mayor of New York decides to call in the SWAT team. These guys are about as sharp as the NYPD. Their big plan is to basically bait the alligator into a fire-zone by banging on pots and pans and stirring up a bunch of noise in the hopes of herding it into the desired direction. Now I'm a Jersey boy…this is the kind of dumbass stunt that deer hunters use when they don't feel like getting their boots dirty. They get a team of guys on one side of the woods to make a bunch of racket, flushing the deer out towards the highway where another group of drunk hillbillies pick them off one by one with their shotguns. Needless to say, this idiotic scheme doesn't work. The problem being: The members of SWAT are trying to outfox an animal that is actually smarter than them. To say that this ticks the alligator off is a bit of an understatement. Gator boy decides that he has had enough of swimming in his own feces, and wants to go topside. He busts up through the middle of the concrete street and climbs his 30-foot scaly ass out of the sewer. People start freaking out all over the place and cop cars arrive on the scene. The gator swats at a car with his tail sending it crashing off the side of the road. The cop tries to get out through the window but Allie bum rushes him and chomps on his leg. A little kid named Joey sees the whole thing and rushes home to tell his mom. Mom is on the phone bitching with some relative and Joey runs back out of the house with a knife. Smart kid, eh? A kitchen knife, even a Ginzu is going to do a whole fuck of a lot of good against something that just burrowed through twenty feet worth of concrete. Silly fucker. Meanwhile, Madison, Kendall, Chief Clark and the Mayor arrive on the scene to survey the damage. The Mayor wants to keep the thing as quiet as possible. Maybe he thinks the Alligator will get tired of the polluted New York air and migrate to Rio de Janeiro. Chief Clark argues with the guy for a while but makes little progress. Kendall makes a cast mold out of one of the alligator's footprints. She estimates the critter to be between 30 and 40 feet long. Which is pretty fucking intuitive on her part I must say. She doesn't even take the time to measure the length or depth of the print and already little Miss Busybody has got ALL the answers. On top of this, the Mayor flies in Colonel Brock. Brock is basically the resident hero that needs to swoop in from time to time to rescue a poor town from whatever monstrosity that happens to be threatening the community at any given moment. But Brock is more concerned about smiling for the camera and playing up his pretty-boy image than he is with hunting the alligator. The Press Corps arrives and Brock tries to seduce a female reporter by making alligator mating calls. I'm not shitting you either. He really does this. The next day, Madison and Kendall decide to go back to Slade Pharmaceutical to put the thumbscrews to them. Madison interrogates Arthur Helms and discovers that Slade has been trying to create a growth hormone. What's more, the alligator has apparently been eating the pups that had been tested with the hormone, hence the animal's unnaturally large size. So basically, all of this carnage has come about because a company wants to find a better way to super-size their product. I hate to tell them this, but McDonalds figured this trick out years ago. Slade Pharmaceuticals needs to get with the times. Now Slade himself happens to be butt-buddies with the Mayor. Through their collective evil machinations, they manage to force Chief Clark to suspend David Madison from investigating the case. See, it doesn't matter if the SWAT guys and the rest of the force try and stop the gator, it only matters that it can't be traced back to Slade. So Madison says, "Fuck it" and decides to team up with Kendall to take the alligator down on his own. Thinking that maybe the gator has returned to the sewers they go down there but turn up nothing. Calling it a day, they go back to Madison's place to fuck. Because let's face it…that's what you have to do. It's in the police-hero contract. Addendum 1: Address the problem. Addendum 2: Break the rules to seek a solution. Addendum 3: Get fired for being such a rogue maverick badass. Addendum 4: Pork the first piece of cooter that comes along. Now the reason that Madison and Kendall have not been able to find the wily alligator is because the dude managed to avert the police dragnet and sneak into somebody's back yard where he's been hiding out in the swimming pool for the whole night. But it just so happens that the following evening, a little kid that lives in the house is having a birthday party. A couple of his friends drag the little kid into the back yard and begin playing pirate on the swimming pool's diving board. Ya see where this is headed right? Now the kid is struggling to not have his ten-year-old ass tossed into the drink - and with good reason. As soon as his body hits the water, along comes Mr. Alligator. It's kind of like that scene in Disney's Peter Pan when Captain Hook starts floundering around trying to avoid the jaws of the crocodile. Well, this kid is no Captain Hook. Within seconds the water of the pool begins churning red with blood. His palette cleansed, the alligator decides to leave. Call me twisted, but this is my favorite scene in the whole goddamn movie. Let's get back to big game hunter Colonel Brock. Now Brock is apparently not as cool as crocodile hunter Steve Irwin who routinely wrangles these reptiles with little assistance. No, Brock is the kind of pussy that has to hire three black guys from a street corner to act as bait. Two of them are smart enough to realize that working with a white dude to catch an inner-city alligator is a dumb move. But Brock questions the bravery of the third man and manipulates him into helping him. They follow the trail of gator poo into a dark alley and Brock investigates a pile of trash bags. Little does he realize however, that the sneaky ole alligator was actually HIDING beneath a pile of trash and debris. Gator boy jumps out of the garbage and snacks on Colonel Brock. The toady he hired has enough common sense to get the hell out of Dodge. After this there's some fluff filler bullshit between Madison and Kendall. They kiss, they fight, they make up. Blah, blah, blah. Let's get back to the gator. It's a brand new day and the cops have now herded the gator into the local reservoir. They take their police boats out there and try shooting the thing as he paddles around back and forth. The gator manages to upset one of the boats, knocking a guy overboard. But his buddies manage to haul him back in before the alligator can get a chance to make an hors derv out of him. Tired of seafood, the gator decides to go back on land again. This time he decides to bust up a wedding party. But not just ANY wedding party mind you. With a twist of poetic irony, the alligator crashes the party of Arthur Helms, the scientist from Slade Pharmaceuticals who happens to be marrying old man Slade's daughter. This is a pretty kick-ass scene overall. The gator leaps from the bushes and yells, "Surprise!" before he begins chomping down on wedding guests. He manages to snag a female caterer and bites down right on her joy-joy region. Ouch! Other guests scream in terror and try to flee, but Gator boy just swipes them aside with his tail. They fly through the air and land in all sorts of shit like hedges, birdbaths, etc. One guy even takes out the wedding cake. Slade and his buddy the Mayor try and run for the street to get away. Slade locks himself inside the limo and doesn't let the mayor share a seat with him. Selfish old bastard. The gator looms up behind them and eats the Mayor. He then begins bashing the shit out of Slade's limo with his tail. Now here's where I think the alligator is showing just a bit too much intelligence. There is plenty of easy prey running about. But rather than chase after them, he instead concentrates on cracking open this particular tootsie pop in order to get to the chewy center. It's as if the creature somehow knew that Slade was the fucker responsible for all this shit. Crafty little alligator. After this, the alligator once again retreats back into the sewer. Why he prefers the sewer when the whole of New York is his oyster is beyond me. So David Madison and Marisa Kendall decide to be useful for once in their misbegotten lives. They track the gator to a storm drain and know that he has returned to the sewer. Madison swipes a bunch of dynamite and shit from the police evidence room and goes a'hunting. While David descends down into the sewers, Marisa stays topside for uhhh…strategic withdraw purposes. Madison finds the alligator and foolishly begins shooting at it with his police-issue .38. Naturally, this accomplishes nothing save for pissing the thing off. The gator begins chasing him around but Dave is skilled enough to always remain two steps ahead of the hungry reptile. He baits the alligator into a section of the sewer with high methane deposits. There he plants the dynamite which is attached to a timer (Earlier in the movie Dave and Jim Kelley apprehended a mad bomber and that is where he got the bomb from. I didn't feel it was necessary to include that scene in this already exceedingly long movie summary). Now David's plan is to set the timer and crawl out of a service hatch. But as luck would have it, some old lady has parked her car right on top of the manhole cover. She's stuck in traffic behind a garbage truck - and as we all know, garbage men take their sweet ole fucking time when it comes to getting their ass in gear. But Marisa shows up and races over to the old lady. She tries to explain to her that she needs to move her car or else David is going to blow himself up. But old people are stubborn and simply refuse to listen to logic no matter how slowly you spell it out to them. Marisa is forced to take a little initiative and opens the car door, pushing the old bat into the passenger seat. She moves the car off the manhole plate allowing David just enough time to crawl out of there before the bomb goes off. The bomb explodes and the alligator is instantly sent to that big boot store up in the sky. Epilogue: Just when New York thought it was safe to take a shit again…some idiot decides to flush ANOTHER baby alligator down the toilet and into the sewers. That's not raw sewage you smell…it's actually the trappings of a SEQUEL! Acting / Dialogue: For reasons that I cannot even begin to fathom, the cast of this movie irritates the living shit out of me. The actors themselves are not at any fault, but something unquantifiable about each of their performances gnaws at my insides like a post-taco intestinal fart. Robert Forster's David Madison is just a dick. We're supposed to feel for the guy because he's got this lone-cop syndrome thing going, but it's not like he's a buff tough guy like Clint Eastwood or Steven Seagal. He's just a bitter, scrawny little turd. Robin Riker isn't too bad as Marisa, but for the fact that even for a respected scientist, she comes across as aloof and a little simple-minded. The guy who plays the police chief is irritating as all-hell; mostly because he's got this course gravely voice that sounds like he's trying to digest glass. Hey buddy! Ever heard of Ludens? How about Ricola? Clear that shit up pal! Oh and don't even get me started on the ultra-annoying reporter. I know he was designed to be disliked, but this creep was so frustrating that I couldn't even take any joy from seeing him devourered. Even Luke Gutchel, the pet store guy irritated me. Probably because he's the same actor who played Cheswick in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and he irked the shit out of me in that too. The dialogue is pretty deadpan and not very creative. It's your typical unimaginative cop-speak. I'm just thankful we didn't hear Robert Forster say, "I'm getting too old for this shit." I swear if I ever hear another cop character say that again I'm going to strangle something small and cute. I mean it! I'm on the edge! Gore: It's been years since I first saw Alligator and even then it was on NBC. Lately I caught it on the Sci-Fi channel, so naturally the gore has been edited out. I seem to recall the swimming pool death scene being a bit grimmer than what Sci-Fi showed (All they showed was the pool water turning red. Hell, I have colored filters for my pool light at home that can do the same thing). But the TV version is fairly sanitized. We see a few severed limbs and we see the gator's mouth gnawing on a few guys; nothing too intense though. I'm sure the uncut version is much more satisfying. Guilty Pleasures: Again, I caught this on the Sci-Fi channel so there wasn't a whole lot going on here. But by the context alone, I can assume that Robin Riker likely shows her tits during the lovemaking scene. I'd rent the original just to see that scene alone, except there isn't a goddamn video store within 20 miles that rents this flick. Sure, they ALL have copious copies of Alligator II: The Mutation, but who the hell wants to watch that dreck? What the fuck is the point in stocking the sequel, but failing to provide the original? That would be as if Blockbuster Video decided that they were ONLY going to stock the Two Towers and Return of the King and not supply us with Fellowship. Fanboy geeks across the globe would be throwing down their 20-sided dice in protest. But once again…horror movie fans get it in the bum. Oh yeah…there's also an amusing little bit of trivia concerning the gator's first victim. The earliest victim was a sewer worker named Ed Norton. Ed Norton was also the name of a character played by Art Carney in the 50's sit-com The Honeymooners (Norton's character was likewise a sewage worker). Sad to think that poor ole Norton came to such a tragic end. My penis weeps big salty tears of remorse for his passing. The Good: I don't know about the rest of you guys, but for me; reptiles make great villains. There is just something wickedly creepy and kinda evil about a reptile. Even turtles. Maybe it's that weird second membrane that passes for an eyelid, I dunno. The scales, the fangs, the claws…all the makings of a super-hip, ultra-boss monster. Historically, reptiles have always been placed in a negative spotlight and pop up in most religions as an icon of evil. You know…Satan being a serpent and all. And if there is any genus or species of animal more deserving of being considered evil, then I say that luminaries of the past made a good call in selecting reptiles as their emissaries of dastardly deviltry. After all, if you take a poll of how many movies have been made about evil reptile predators and compare them to those about evil bunnies or savage mutant koala bears, then I think you will learn to appreciate the time honored badge of badness that has been afforded to our favorite warm blooded egg-laying shit-kicking lizard thingies. But this review isn't just about masturbating over the uniformed coolness of reptiles. This time we are specifically citing alligators. Now of the two infamous swamp dwelling reptiles, gators are kind of the pussy pony lapdogs of Crocodiles. Crocs are bigger, faster, meaner and they even inspire insipid 80's comedies starring Paul Hogan. But gators usually get the shit-end of the cinematic stick. Mostly because they're really not all that threatening. You ever see gator wrestling? Some drunken redneck wallows around in the mud proving that his penis still works by slinging around some poor tranquilized critter that is barely four feet long. But finally, after eons of bad press, a little John Sayles movie comes along that attempts to give a little sack back to the #2 guy. Naturally, we have to up the ante a bit here and give the gator in question a bit more crotch padding than we normally would like, but the results check out just fine. What makes this guy so fucking cool is that he is one-part ninja. He can blend with his surroundings, walk between the rain drops and inveigle himself in common surroundings. I bet this guy could even pull the tablecloth off a kitchen table without disturbing the dinette set. Something in the reptile gene allows these guys to do this type of shit. Don't believe me? Check out the Ninja Turtles. Or even the velociraptors from Jurassic Park. Or better yet, check out that weird Americanized Godzilla movie where 'Zilla moves like a shadow between the Hudson River and Madison Square Garden without anyone ever noticing. These guys were BUILT for stealth. If the government had done what it's supposed to do and create mutant reptile super soldier men to go after Al Quaeda, I bet we would have nabbed Osama Bin Laden four years ago. (Believe it or not, the Pentagon actually laughed at me when I sent them my designs to propagate a species of killer mutant gator soldier men. Fuckers.) Seriously, you would HAVE to be some sort of a badass super-gator to be able to waltz around New York City without being fucked with. I've been to New York a few times. Those guys don't fuck around. What trips me out the most is when super-gator sneaks over a white picket fence into some kid's back yard and chills out in the pool while a party is going on. Nobody notices shit. I also love the fact that he eats the little kid! Classic! Call me sick, but that's what I call entertainment. It irks the shit out of me when children are found to be exempt from a monster's attack just because the director felt that it would be 'insensitive'. Fuck sensitivity! Save that shit for 7th Heaven. This is a horror movie dammit; I want blood, tits, gore and more tits! The point being, the alligator isn't going to discriminate upon what he views as prey, so why should the director do likewise when deciding whom the creature is going to feast upon? Trust me, little kids make for ideal snacking. Why? Because they run slower, that's why! The gator itself looks pretty cool. It's all done with trick photography, miniatures and a few well-placed animatronics; but the end result is fairly slick. He doesn't look cheesy or ultra-fake. The best scenes are when he starts crunching up through the sidewalk and walking down the street. I respect this movie because it was able to fulfill its goal without resorting to stuff like CGI animation. CGI is cool and all, but sometimes you simply can't beat the old-style methods. The Bad: Despite the length of space I dedicated to the previous section, I'm not really a huge fan of this movie. Truthfully, it's kind of boring. That's the problem with mindless monster flicks. You have to dedicate a significant portion of time to the supporting cast, in order to flesh out your story…but the people watching your movie aren't concerned with that. They just want to see the monster. But at the same time, you just can't have an hour and a half of blood-splattering carnage with no plot or no character base. So what do you do? Try and find an easy balance and hope for the best I guess. To his credit, director Lewis Teague attempts to find that balance. The fact that he even tried earns him a smidgen more respect than I would reserve for other directors. He cock teases us a lot in the beginning by only showing the gator in small, dark confined areas where we only get to see his eyeball or the spines on his back. But I think Teague held back the hammer too much and waited too long to show us the final product. The gator busting up through the street is a fantastic scene, but by then most of your audience has already dozed off. Or maybe I'm simply not giving this flick the credit it deserves. As I said earlier, the cast in this movie really got under my skin, and that kind of put a damper on the entire experience. Put as hard as I tried, I just couldn't muster the energy to give a meat patty of shit about any of them. The bullshit subplot with Madison's character didn't wash for me either. I understand that his determination to find the gator stems from his failure to save his partner in St. Louis; as if this selfless deed is somehow supposed to magically resurrect the poor fucker. Which would actually be pretty fucking cool now that I think about it. Zombie cops are always fun. But again, the guy's a prick, so I really don't care if his victory against super-gator makes him feel better about himself. I think I would have been happier if the old bitch in the car never moved off the top of the manhole cover. Madison would have died in the explosion and hack reviewers like myself would then be able to compare his noble sacrifice to that of Melville's Captain Ahab in Moby Dick. But one man's shit is another man's shinola. So while I may have been slightly under whelmed by Lewis Teague's achievement, others may think differently. Alligator is definitely worth watching, don't get me wrong. But it's not the sort of flick that I would ever consider to be a "classic". Great Lines: "I'm gonna go out there, find that alligator…and kick its ass." -Madison to Kendall. Overall Rating: 6 out of 10 severed heads. |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
 |