Alligator may be my favorite animal-run-amock film just behind Jaws and Razorback.  I know blasphemy, but whatever.  Alligator is flushed down toilet.  Alligator gets huge.  Alligator PWNS.  There you go.  That’s the story in a nutshell.  So, why do I love this little B-gem from 1980?  Almost everything.  The film works because everyone plays with a straight face.  There is no wink, wink nudge, nudge moments at all…well, there’s a few!  It’s dead serious, and hilarious because of it.

Rating:

Let’s do this with a quick little picture show.

This:

Causes all the problems.

He:

Is supposed to stop it (the guy on the right, those eyebrows would’ve killed the alligator in the first 5 seconds of the film).  Of course no one believes him, and he’s fired from his job, leaving people like this:

To suffer because of it.  Did anyone notice the mother not caring that her son was about to be pushed into his own pool, with rope on his legs?

Two more quick clips of Pwnage:

I’ve purposely left out the “wedding scene” because you really need to see it in context to fully comprehend the awesomeness of the situation.  For those that care, the alligator is named Ramone for reasons not given.

The thing that works so well, besides kick as alligator ( NO CG people), is that story surrounding it.  Yes, we have a pretty straight-forward, killer alligator flick, but the two main characters are fully realized.  They actually have arcs (however small they may be) and they try to achieve their goals while dealing with the monster beast.

As, per the usual, we get lots of dead people.  Limbs are torn off, people are swallowed while still screaming, people are smashed against things, etc.  I love the fact that it was pretty much the same every time.  The alligator would close in on its victim with it’s mouth open and the next shot would be the victim in it’s mouth.  I think the pool scene is the only scene where you actually see the victim being brought into the jaws.  Honestly, it doesn’t really make sense the rest of the time, so that just adds to the ridiculousness of it all.

I have one problem with the film and that’s the pacing.  It could’ve used a caffeine shot about 10 minutes in.  Killings are spread way too far apart until the last 25 minutes, or so.  The ending makes the first hour totally worth your time.  I’m not saying the beginning sucks, it just…drags a bit.