Gator Creek review – blood-lust in the bayou with drug-crazed killer reptiles
While shark-attack flicks hog the limelight, crocodile and alligator ones get comparatively little love, despite a long history from 1980's Alligator to 1999's Lake Placid to 2019 Netflix film Crawl. This mostly ludicrous but fitfully enjoyable entry plays like a Donald Trump meat-fever dream; after DEA agents bust a Louisiana everglades drug factory, the Ribena-coloured run-off leaks into the waterways, creating a strain of super-aggressive alligators.
Lead prospective morsel in the human chum bucket is biology student Kyle (Athena Strates), who's heading into the wilderness to scatter her brother's ashes. Her obnoxious pal Malika (Elisha Applebaum) – a female Steven Stifler – books them on a light aircraft, despite Kyle's fear of flying. With everyone oblivious to wingnut pilot Frank (Andonis Anthony) essentially being Quint from Jaws, the flight nosedives into the bayou. And with Frank's operation unchartered, no mobile phone coverage and a swamp teeming with reptiles, they are fresh out of gator aid.
From the sun-baked old-timer round the back of the 7/11 crowing over a super-sized saurian, Gator Creek has reptilian-cortex bloodlust switched on from the get-go. Too much, to be honest; on the evidence of the film's spasmodic plotting, it seems like writers Ashley Holberry and Gavin Cosmo Mehrtens have been sipping the purple run-off themselves. A spat over a mobile phone with a cartoon financial trader improbably causes the plane to crash. With Kyle's bestie Alice (Madalena Aragão) filching a batch of lizard eggs, the film appears to give the slaughter a behavioural explanation. But it's completely forgotten until the drug-den finale when, with Kyle in her singlet facing down angry mama gator, the film suddenly seems to think it's Aliens.
Without a sensible guiding hand, a punch-drunk dissonance takes hold of proceedings. Kyle tries to dispense zoological knowledge as a way out of their predicament, which becomes superfluous when events boil down to a rabid reptile rugby scrum. Directors Taneli Mustonen and Brad Watson show bursts of proficiency, with drone shots of metallic-looking glades and interesting tilt-shift effects for the plane crash. But they are alongside some of the most laughable practical effects imaginable: such as the man-trap gator jaws someone unwittingly sticks their head into. Of course there are the copious gorehound kills to latch on to, but Gator Creek is liable to leave you, like its cast, with an unsavoury residue on your hands.
Gator Creek is on digital platforms from 24 March.
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