Alligator (1980)

People are voting emotionally.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

This is one of the scariest movies ever. See it. It has a great story line. It also has great acting. It is very scary.

This is actually a serious monster horror with quite a good story behind it. It is not at all original but the acting, the direction and the whole film really comes off well as a good monster horror. It will hold your attention and keep you entertained but you may find it a bit silly and not scary enough. There is some good tension near the beginning but by the end this is all gone. Worth a watch and entertaining. Average monster movie affair that passes the time without much effort.

I was informed that this is considered a classic within the genre. I'm not sure what genre that is but either way it was somewhat of an anti-climax.A baby alligator is flushed down the toilet and twelve years later its big and it's angry! It's one police officer & his scientist buddies job to track it and kill it while surrounded by people who simply don't believe them.Is it wrong that I was cheering on the alligator? After all it's not some evil monster, it's just an abandoned hungry animal.Alligator isn't bad, it's just not that exciting. It looks decent considering it's 37 tears old but it hardly grips you.The Good: Creature effects aren't that bad considering it's age The Bad: No consistency regarding the Alligators size Robert Forster's hairThings I Learnt From This Movie:Alligators can be easily purchased as pets Alligators make great jump ramps

A certain old urban legend that you may have heard of brilliantly takes on a life of its own in this underrated horror classic. There were scores of these straight-to-video monster movies that were made in the eighties and early 90's, and so many of them are so cheap and boring that they're barely memorable, and you watch this film and every scene has got the genuine charm and really great dry wit, the script is superb and the story terrifically-paced, most genre movies these days would take forty minutes to cover the same amount of ground that this one does in a quarter of an hour. There's no bulls**t, just flush, boom, and right into the action! To me it's just an extremely fun film to watch, a throwback to an old-fashioned great B-movie, in the best sense of it. I think it looks very professional considering how old it is, which you can tell, but I really wish more films would have been made like this, as I find its style more entertaining than most of the big-budget Hollywood monster films. I don't deny that a couple of hundred-thousand dollars more for special effects couldn't have hurt, but I don't know if that would have made it a better picture in the long run or not. I personally love the effects, there's a very effective mix of various practical effects and scenes where they'll have a real live juvenile gator crawling through a miniature set, and even as a little kid I could tell that's what it was. But it just works, the effect still looks pretty good, whenever they show the victims trapped in the huge jaws of the scaly beast it looks real! The models look a little funky at times but they fit the picture, and are used in a competent way that you buy into them. The sequence where I think they show way too much of the alligator is the big crazy wedding massacre which is too over-the-top and silly for me now, with the ridiculously obvious looped screaming in the background and oh no, not the wedding cake! And how long does it take for a crowd to clear one party? Apart from that, I'm glad they don't show the creature all that much. I find it far more frightening and sinister when it's mostly unseen and lurking in the dank darkness of the sewers... The parts of this movie that I enjoy the most are all the sewer scenes, they're so fantastically creepy and atmospheric, it makes me uncomfortable just watching those scenes! They combine the fear of water and the dark. Anyway less is often more when it comes to practical effect monsters. No matter how good a beastie they created, the more it's seen the less effective and interesting it becomes. You start to say, "oh look how well designed and animated it is", but you're not afraid of it anymore, you become accustomed to it. When you look at something like Alien, where you never really see the monster, that's really scary and fun. I think about this movie and others like it from the time, that again a lot of them are far more entertaining than flicks like the 1998 Godzilla say, because it's about character,then humour, then the horror. It's not all about the special effects, and that's what makes this film endure where other films where they did all the perfectly planned special effects, they're soulless vacant kind of movies, and this one still really holds up. Especially when it comes to the characters. Robert Forster's burned-out performance delivers such a perfectly jaded, well-rounded likable gruff hero that you really want to see win and kick that gator's ass! His kind of dead-pan delivery was so spot on. And Robin Riker's nerdy yet sexy, cool and collected reptile expert who still lives with her mother is also solid. I found their romantic chemistry virtually nonexistent, but they still made a great team together. I just loved the lively old gal that played Marissa's mother! She was so natural, it wasn't even like it was acting, it was like the nicest lady ever, what'd they catch her on a coffee break and stick her in front of the camera? And also the tobacco-chewing Perry Lang was witty and gorgeous.. The picture basically exists to me as a horror thriller with overtones of comedy brought out by the characterisations. It just had comedic aspects to it, but never goes into downright parody. There's such a great balance between the horror and the humour. I find the scene where the little boy is made to walk the plank and is devoured very grim and disturbing. The way the mother turns on the light and reveals the hungry maw of the gator just as he's being pushed in, it's totally the stuff that nightmares are made of. And that was damn ballsy at the time, daring to kill a kid. Hell, even Friday the 13th had Jason spare a little girl! All you see is a cloud of blood, but it's still a horrific shock moment that's very memorable. I also loved the moment during the creepy sequence where Madison and Kelly are searching the sewers and when the torch shines behind them you catch a glimpse of the alligator for a second as it stealthily moves back and the light reflects off its eye, and it's one of the film's eeriest moments, and a very effective use of lighting effects. The movie is also aided by a fantastic score that does a great job of accentuating the fun yet scary tone, I find the theme that plays over the end credits seriously chilling. It's a monster movie that knows what it is and has fun with it. Always a true pleasure to watch again and again. Bless you Alligator!!!