Rollergator (1996)

Stylish but barely mediocre overall

People are voting emotionally.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This film has one thing going for it: the lead actress is really cute and entirely adorable. She can't act for beans (she can barely get her lines out), but she looks good on camera. No, she doesn't wear a whole lot of clothes for most of the movie, but she brings a certain dewy-eyed fawn appeal to her scenes. Think live action version of a Japanese Anime about superhero school girls like Sailor Moon - sexy-but-innocent- and you'll have the idea. As for the rest of it: Total crap. Most egregious is the "rollergator" himself, who ranks as a special effects somewhere below the hand-puppets in "Hobgoblins" (where stagehands held the puppets against the actors at some points) and the forced-perspective rubber dinosaurs in "Future War". He doesn't even have real "arms" - just molded pictures of arms on his torso. And the actor dubbing his voice really ought to be beaten with wet noodle until he understands the difference between "spunky/street wise" and "New Zoo Review". And it's not enough to have him be a talking alligator/dinosaur - they had to make him a RAPPING one. This would have been OK if the rapping was decent, but "Rollergator"s rap forced cutesie-poo lyrics and delivery wouldn't cut it on Sesame Street, The Electric Company, or Schoolhouse Rock. Joe Estevez is in this. I usually like Joe as an actor, but this morass brings out his worst,well,everything. I could only watch "Rollergator" in short bursts because my eyes and ears kept bleeding. I finished it, looking really hard for something else beside the blond lead to like, but it was like panning for gold nuggets in a dung heap. Avoid at all costs.

Dire Ineptitude!!!!!!! For fans of bad movies only. The Rifftrax version is the recommended way to see this wretched movie.As stated above, this movie is the worst I've ever seen (dethroning the previous worst: 1964's "The Creeping Terror") being an avid fan of MST3K and Rifftrax for the past 15 years, I like to think I know something about bad movies. And let me say when the question of "what's the worst movie ever" arises, generic, ubiquitous choices like "Plan 9 from Outer Space" DO NOT hold a candle to ROLLERGATOR once you dissect these movies element by element. Those being casting, script, acting, dialogue, sound recording, editing, music, pacing, special effects, costumes, etc. ROLLERGATOR is thee absolute ultimate in terms overall badness. Easily.Starring Charlie Sheen's uncle, also known as Joe Estevez, he's the star-power of the movie, the other "actors" are total no-names, that the casting agent probably found at a local community theater (or a laundro-mat). As you can glean from the cover, along with Charlie Sheen's uncle, there's a small purple alligator (that talks!) featured in the movie; it's limply brought to life by a very lame and simplistic hand-puppet, whose tiny hands appear to be permanently fused to it's chest, as there is no arm movement what-so-ever.The basic characters are a young blonde chick on rollerblades who befriends the alligator and its with the help of her skates that it becomes the: ROLLERGATOR! Estevez plays a carnival owner, along with him comes a henchman to do his dirty work, a karate instructor, a "dark ninja" and yet another even younger blonde girl on rollerblades named "Slingshot", plus near the end there's some portly, bumbling, old biologist whose been attempting to find the alligator.Throughout the movie, almost non-stop, there is aimless "playing" of an acoustic guitar, which will have to do as far as the soundtrack goes; occasional organ tracks appear and briefly add variety, but then back come the pointless guitar wanking.As far as the dialogue goes, it often sounds improvised and shows little flow or logic and is often unintelligible. Blah, blah, blah, the portly old biologist who's looking for the alligator eventually finds the alligator, who by then of course, is a Rollergator. End of movie. The worst movie ever. (Hey all, any word on whether there's to be a 20th anniversary Blu-ray edition issued in 2016???)

I have only looked at the recent short from Rifftrax and, from what I saw, to give this zero-budget 'thing' any stars should be a crime; since IMDb requires a minimum of 1, that's all it could 'possibly' get.Everyone involved with "Rollergator" must have known they were making the equivalent of 'cinematic fecal matter'. Cheap and amateurish in every imaginable aspect of film-making, this pile of celluloid dung's only two redeeming qualities were the presence of the self-loathing (I suspect) Joe Estevez who may have thought:'I know full-well what I'm getting into, but don't care because I'm expected to be in intentionally-crappy films. How awful can I be in this one?') and the not-so-bad-looking blonde actress, Sandra Shuker, although her thespian skills border on non-existent. That's really it, folks. It's that bad.The talking (!) baby alligator puppet would have even been improved by merely sewing eyes on a sock...you'd get the same effect, really. I guess it's all an intentional joke because it looks so obviously-fake. Anyone who's heard of 'Ed the Sock' has seen this before and just as believably; only Ed's perpetual cigar was missing.Saying, 'This is the worst (fill in the blank) I've ever seen, etc.' is asking for it. Something even more horrifically-cheap and stupid may actually be possible...a shuddering thought, considering what I saw of this thing.

It infuriates me that whoever gave the director of this movie funding to make this film got so taken in. I can only hope that "legendary" film director Donald G. Jackson (of Hell Comes to Frogtown "fame") embezzled the majority of the production costs for a used Ford Fiesta or something.Make no mistake, this is not an example of "so bad it's good," this movie is "so bad it's melting my eyes and ears." Speaking of melting ears, the soundtrack is hands down the worst ever. It entails someone playing acoustic guitar (amplified) throughout the duration of the entire film (except for occasional pee and water breaks). The music has zero to do with what's going on-screen, and about 10 minutes in I was suspicious that might even be a sound loop.But worst of all is that you can't hear about 40% of the dialogue because there is music drowning it out.Not that you *would* want to hear the music. From what I can tell, the story consists of a baby, "rapping(and we use that term lightly here)", purple alligator has gotten lost. I couldn't get far enough into the movie to actually see it roller skate(I had an immense headache after an hour and ten minutes of watching the film), but apparently it does... eventually.The film *seems* to be designed for kids. What with all the skateboarding Ninjas & slingshotting little girls. But the main character in the movie is dressed in a sports bra and extremely skimpy biker trunks. Meanwhile most of the film's cinematography seems to entail zooming in on the girl's belly button while she skates around.I really don't want to spend anymore time talking about this film. Its offensive it was ever made, and I really wish I had never seen it.