Alligator (1980) Revisited – Horror Movie Review
A couple years ago I reviewed/tried to defend Alligator II: The Mutation and all I can say is well, we all make mistakes. I’ve tried to watch that movie multiple times since I defended it and I just couldn’t get into it, to say nothing of actually enjoying it. Instead of that, my oldest brother sent me the 4K of that movie’s predecessor and man, does Alligator from 1980 still hold up just fine today. While it is certainly part Jaws clone, it also transcends that vibe into a movie of its own. Alligator could have been something entirely different based on the multitude of different scores, scripts, and directors that were thrown around but what we got is a Chicago based creature feature that bridges the gap between 70s environmentalism and 80s slashers, at least in one aspect. It also features one of the most relatable performances from a lead actor ever that cemented his place in genre film and gave us a glimpse of what his late career would have in store. Oh, and it’s got the weirdest reference to classic film that I’ve maybe ever seen. This is Alligator and it’s the true black sheep of 80s creature features.
While the Jaws summer season has come and gone, I ended up watching way more knockoffs or homages than I could ever have the time to cover on the channel, but the good news is there will always be another summer and more beefed-up creatures taking out citizens and professionals alike. Tentacles, Piranha 2, and other various entries in this beloved genre will have to wait but for today I want to talk about Alligator and give it some love as while it’s seemingly well known, I don’t think it gets talked about nearly enough. It was fairly successful too with it making 6 and a half million on its 1.5 million dollar budget in addition to it receiving a way too late and not great sequel and a board game, yeah, look it up. Scream Factory took good care of it recently as well, putting it on a 3 disc set with a 4K, Blu-ray, and even TV cut version of the movie all in one place. That’s the best way to check this film out and I highly recommend it.
The idea for Alligator came from independent horror and sci-fi producer Brandon Chase and it was announced by him in 1976. Chase had, allegedly because I can’t find proof anywhere that he had anything to do with it, enjoyed the success from The Giant Spider Invasion from 1975 and claimed that “audiences are looking for something different, huge things popping up from sewers and outer space are different.” Which sounds like a man who was not watching a single sci-fi movie from the 1950s. Them! or War of the Worlds anyone? The original script sounds gloriously stupid, with it taking place in Milwaukee and the gator growing to its abnormally large size from drinking beer from a brewery. Glorious but very stupid. Joe Dante was an option to direct but turned it down as he had already put forth his Jaws homage with Piranha in 1978. Lewis Teague was instead signed on and hated the script. He had recently done The Lady in Red with a script from John Sayles and decided to bring that scribe in. Sayles, as we discussed in the Piranha video, has had an interesting and Oscar nominated career. Check out Brother from Another Planet and my favorite of his Lone Star to see his range after you’ve watched his holy trinity of horror with this, Piranha, and The Howling.
Teague, at least for me, was only notable for also directing the Stephen King book adaptation of Cujo but he has a handful of other really fun entries like Cat’s Eye, also King, as well as better than its reputation sequel Jewel of the Nile and fun actioner Navy Seals from 1990. All 3 of his 80s horror entries are fun even if he doesn’t have a particular style that stands out like a Carpenter or Romero. For the cast, Robert Forster joined and was dealing with hair loss at the time. He pitched to move that into his character and there are numerous instances of him having conversations about it with colleagues and love interests. Forster was a journeyman actor for most of his career and his highest profile job prior to this was Disney’s The Black Hole which also happened to be one of their biggest busts ever. He would go through much of the 80s with fun but lower key movies like Vigilante before getting picked out by Quentin Tarantino to co-star and be Oscar nominated in Jackie Brown, hilariously just a year after appearing in 4th of July slasher film Uncle Sam. The latter part of his career would yield such hits as Mulholland Drive, the Twin Peaks revival, and El Camino. Good dude ends up with a full, fun, and good career. You love to see it.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Alligator’s similarities to Jaws though. While it doesn’t take anything away from the uniqueness and greatness of this movie, it does slap you in the face with it. Forster plays a cop trying to catch the creature, Robin Riker plays the scientist who wants to help him, and the late great Henry Silva plays the seasoned hunter looking for the big score. Throw in a slimy mayor character and we have Chicago land based Jaws. Again though as I said, this isn’t to disparage the movie at all and the characters act differently and have different personal quirks than their Amity Island counterparts but the comparison is always there and will always be brought up in creature features. The Quint character dies in similar fashion to Robert Shaw’s much more charismatic creation and the thing explodes quite similarly although smiling like a son of a bitch is unconfirmed.
The movie itself was meant to be a gradual climb through society with the big lug eating its way through a classist society starting with the more poor areas and ending up at the top of a high rise for the wealthy but there were scripting changes and, in another nod to Jaws, the animal itself didn’t work like it was supposed to and in fact broke down quite often so we got some obvious, but charming as hell miniatures, and a lot of times that the creature had to be shot around to make work. The deaths are fun and surprisingly varied too. In fact, one of the things that the TV cut has that I miss in the theatrical cut is probably the most suspenseful scene in the film. We see a mom outside doing laundry and you think her little child is going to get gobbled up, off screen of course as it’s a TV cut, but then she finds the kiddo in the laundry basket to her and everyone watching’s surprise. Not a death now that I’m thinking about it but a really well done scene, nonetheless. The actual deaths range from Forster’s character Madison losing a partner in the sewers to Brock, played by Henry Silva, meeting his demise in an alley after he thinks he has the creature trapped. My favorite though is when the scummiest character in the movie thinks he is safe in a car after the alligator, who has a name by the way, crushes him in the car like a damn anchovy AFTER absolutely demolishing a character outside of the car who also absolutely had it coming. It’s a neat touch since you kind of just expect the creature to only eat people but no, car crushing and tail whipping are also in his repertoire.
The alligator having a name really is a microcosm for why the movie has that charm that was rarely equaled in the genre. The alligator’s name is Ramon, and he was flushed down the toilet by an angry father. This is to perpetuate the rumors that there were alligators in the sewers of New York which is also kind of funny as the movie takes place in Chicago but was filmed in Los Angeles but here we are. Not only that, but the movie decided to make the love interest and scientist in the movie the girl who adopted and named the dang thing 12 years prior. The alligator survived by eating animal carcasses that were dumped in the sewer by a shady company who was experimenting with growth hormones to help with world hunger. Sounds like an altruistic idea but of course it isn’t because the mayor and head of the company are clearly just the worst.
In a nice twist though, the hormones didn’t make the animals super aggressive or zombie like. They simply made them have an unquenchable appetite as they get larger. This is actually refreshing as it’s not a rage alligator, just a hungry boy who can never be fulfilled and has near impenetrable skin. What could possibly go wrong? Madison, played by the lovable and charming Forster, finds sewer worker remains and decides to try and solve it. His reputation as a partner hex doesn’t help when his younger partner is eaten in the sewers, something he has a giallo like fever dream nightmare about later, but he meets up with the girl whose dad flushes Ramon in the first place and they become love interests. We get an annoying reporter killed, the hunter brought in to take a trophy killed, a kid in a swimming pool killed in a horrifying scene, and finally Slade, his would be son-in-law, and the mayor before the gator is blown up in the sewers with some fun explosives.
Alligator is 90 minutes of creature feature action, sure, but the script and acting elevate it to something more. From Madison getting kicked off the force and saving the city on his off time to the really great conversations between Madison and Kendall, and even him bonding with her mother, these scenes give Alligator character that is missing from not only most Jaws clones and rip-offs but creature features in general. It’s a rule of thumb that you should care about characters but most of this type of movie in the sub-genre don’t focus on that. It’s all about the creature and the kills but Alligator shows you can have a creature movie that does both. It goes by fast and gives you that full meal feeling where the good guys that you enjoy make it to the end of the movie, some kills happen that are unexpected and brutal, and all the bad guys get their comeuppance by the end of the film. While we don’t get movies like this anymore and that’s sad, it’s nice to know we will always have Alligator to fall back on and show future generations how it was done right. This one should never be flushed.
A couple of the previous episodes of The Black Sheep can be seen at the bottom of this article. To see more, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
The post Alligator (1980) Revisited – Horror Movie Review appeared first on JoBlo.