Sadly Over-hyped

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Boring

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Mutant alligator--30-40 feet in length--was once flushed down the toilet as a baby, and for the last 12 years has been surviving in the Missouri sewers on the discarded pet carcasses from a pharmaceutical laboratory injecting their animal subjects with an experimental synthetic form of testosterone. Homicide detective Robert Forster, besieged with unanswerable questions from the media after severed limbs begin popping up in the water canals, investigates. Half black-humored thriller in the wake of "Jaws", scored with what appears to be a "Jaws" parody soundtrack (or it could be an homage, though it's most likely just a rip-off). Forster gives a seasoned, well-rounded performance, though I'm not sure his dramatic weight and conviction is what screenwriter John Sayles had in mind here. Is the movie just a quickie product made to cash-in on the 'freakish animal' fad or a project taken seriously by those involved? Certainly Sayles' environmental message is meant to give us pause--and Forster's burnt-out detective is an instantly identifiable characterization--but all this in the service of a picture about a hungry alligator on a feeding frenzy? *1/2 from ****

I must say that this film caught me by surprise. Having endured terrible "Jaws" ripoffs such as "Tentacles" and "Devilfish", I expected very little from this film in terms of quality, but was gladly mistaken. This is a film that takes into account the potential similarities to "Jaws" and takes every opportunity to differentiate itself rather than delve into parody. Instead of upper class suburban New York we have downtrodden Chicago slums, and of course the titular crocodilian in place of a shark. Without spoiling any details, I can't point out much else. However, to anyone who may have passed on this film due to potential similarities to a certain popular Spielberg film, give it a watch. You will not be disappointed.

While on a vacation in Florida a young girl buys a baby alligator and takes it with her back to Chicago. Unfortunately, the father gets upset not long afterward and flushes it down the toilet. Twelve years later it has stayed alive by feeding on the carcasses of dogs which had been subjected to scientific experiments to increase their growth rates. Because of these chemicals the alligator has now grown to an incredible size and begins to feed on anybody or anything that enters the sewers. As a result "Detective David Madison" (Robert Forster) is assigned to investigate two separate incidents where human remains are found in or near the sewer. Helping him is a young woman named "Marisa Kendall" (Robin Riker) who specializes in reptile behavior and who was--as it just happened to turn out—the young girl who bought the baby alligator years before. Anyway, rather than detail the entire plot I will just say that this was an okay movie for this particular genre. While the special effects aren't anything to get excited about they were adequate for movies from this particular time period. Additionally, I would have liked to have seen a bit more of Angel Tompkins (who played a television reporter) than the very brief part she was given. But by and large I have no real complaints and I rate the movie as about average.

I don't have to share it with anyone if I don't want to. Alligator is such a funny, poke-you-in-the-eye sort of horror flick that only the most deathly serious among us wouldn't get a chuckle from it. I remember, more than anything else, the relentless teasing that Robert Forster gets for his bad haircut. Really, haircut jokes? In a story about an alligator that gets flushed down the toi-toi and gets loaded up on growth hormones until, well, you get the picture.I saw Alligator on ABC shortly after it left its theatrical distribution with, probably, not a cent to its name. Yet, when I got to see it in VHS, I jumped at the chance. I honestly don't know if I'd jump again, but I have great affection for this cheap, fun drive-in fare.