31 Nights of Halloween Horror - Night 4 - The Big Alligator River
The Big Alligator River
99 mins.
Dir. Sergio Martino
Italy/1979
Tonight's Jaws rip off film is for my Italian film loving friends, but don't get too excited. Nana is not making homemade gravy for Sunday dinner, tonight it is coming from a jar, and not even any of that Ragu shit. This is more along the lines of some store brand sauce, but a step up from ketchup.
The story is very simple, some land developers are decimating forests down in Africa to make way for Paradise House, a new tourist destination with fun attractions like Tarzan's Raft and Crocodile Bridge. Some of the African tribes aren't too keen on having their homeland invaded by the rich white man and neither is the ancient Alligator god Kruma. But more on that later.
So rich white land developer Mel Ferrer from such great films as Nightmare City and Eaten Alive, brings down a photographer Claudio Cassinelli from such great films as Mountain of the Cannibal God and Murder Rock, to take pics of his new resort to get into all the famous magazines. But Claudio is not too impressed with the exploitation of the land that is going on to sucker in the tourists. Instead he has his eyes set on Mel's assistant, the exotic Barabara Bach from such great films as Black Belly of the Tarantula and Short Night of Glass Dolls.
One night two people take a little boat ride out from the hotel for a little hanky panky. The next morning their boat washes up a shore damaged with no passengers in sight. The natives blame the Kruma, an enormous killer alligator. Mel doesn't buy into the stories, as the next day a dry run of Paradise House is set to open to a bunch of guests. So Claudio and Barabara go to do some investigating and have an encounter with Kruma himself in all his stiff, close up, quickly and poorly edited, cheap fx glory.
Mel still doesn't give a shit, nothing is going to stop him from having his shindig celebrating Paradise House tonight. Well nothing but a giant alligator and a pissed off alligator worshipping tribe. Everyone's dressed up and out on floating dance floors on the river having a good time, music is playing, drinks are flowing and then the shit hits the fan. Barbara gets kidnapped by the alligator loving tribe and tied up for as a sacrificial offering like Fay Wray in King Kong, but Kruma, is like maybe later, I have a ton of tourists to chow down on first and starts recking havoc on the floating party, eating everyone. The tourists are like, fuck this I am heading back to shore and what should they find there, but the pissed off Alligator tribe shooting flaming arrows at them. These people are totally fucked. Meanwhile Claudio goes and rescues Barbara and Kruma says, no way I am not letting you guys escape and knocks their van into the river. Luckily Claudio has some dynamite and shoves it down Kruma's mouth and says, here feast on this bitch and makes Kruma look like the shark at the end of Jaws. Morning comes, those who survived are on the beach when suddenly the alligator worshipping tribe shows up and everyone is like, oh shit. The tribe looks at the blown up alligator carcass in the water and begins to cheer, Hooray you blew up our god, thanks, and walks away. And those who lived, presumably lived happily ever after.
Not great by an stretch of the means, but despite having a super cheap ass alligator that you only catch glimpses of his eye or parts of his mouth and never see him in his entirety it is not really a dull movie and much better then last years entry for Tentacles. Mostly known for Torso and Mountain of the Cannibal God director Sergio Martino definitely delivered an entertaining enough movie with probably a minuscule budget. Sadly though, for this being an exploitation flick there is zero nudity or gore. A few red splashes in the water, but that is it. A little of alligator chomping could have escalated this movie to more of a cult status. But despite all that there is actually more of a deeper message going on here, one of developers going on to native soil and destroying the land to exploit it's natural habit for profit and greed. A tale that still holds true today. With that being said, seems like we could use more Alligator gods eating people, oh Kruma come back to us.
The Big Alligator River
99 mins.
Dir. Sergio Martino
Italy/1979
Tonight's Jaws rip off film is for my Italian film loving friends, but don't get too excited. Nana is not making homemade gravy for Sunday dinner, tonight it is coming from a jar, and not even any of that Ragu shit. This is more along the lines of some store brand sauce, but a step up from ketchup.
The story is very simple, some land developers are decimating forests down in Africa to make way for Paradise House, a new tourist destination with fun attractions like Tarzan's Raft and Crocodile Bridge. Some of the African tribes aren't too keen on having their homeland invaded by the rich white man and neither is the ancient Alligator god Kruma. But more on that later.
So rich white land developer Mel Ferrer from such great films as Nightmare City and Eaten Alive, brings down a photographer Claudio Cassinelli from such great films as Mountain of the Cannibal God and Murder Rock, to take pics of his new resort to get into all the famous magazines. But Claudio is not too impressed with the exploitation of the land that is going on to sucker in the tourists. Instead he has his eyes set on Mel's assistant, the exotic Barabara Bach from such great films as Black Belly of the Tarantula and Short Night of Glass Dolls.
One night two people take a little boat ride out from the hotel for a little hanky panky. The next morning their boat washes up a shore damaged with no passengers in sight. The natives blame the Kruma, an enormous killer alligator. Mel doesn't buy into the stories, as the next day a dry run of Paradise House is set to open to a bunch of guests. So Claudio and Barabara go to do some investigating and have an encounter with Kruma himself in all his stiff, close up, quickly and poorly edited, cheap fx glory.
Mel still doesn't give a shit, nothing is going to stop him from having his shindig celebrating Paradise House tonight. Well nothing but a giant alligator and a pissed off alligator worshipping tribe. Everyone's dressed up and out on floating dance floors on the river having a good time, music is playing, drinks are flowing and then the shit hits the fan. Barbara gets kidnapped by the alligator loving tribe and tied up for as a sacrificial offering like Fay Wray in King Kong, but Kruma, is like maybe later, I have a ton of tourists to chow down on first and starts recking havoc on the floating party, eating everyone. The tourists are like, fuck this I am heading back to shore and what should they find there, but the pissed off Alligator tribe shooting flaming arrows at them. These people are totally fucked. Meanwhile Claudio goes and rescues Barbara and Kruma says, no way I am not letting you guys escape and knocks their van into the river. Luckily Claudio has some dynamite and shoves it down Kruma's mouth and says, here feast on this bitch and makes Kruma look like the shark at the end of Jaws. Morning comes, those who survived are on the beach when suddenly the alligator worshipping tribe shows up and everyone is like, oh shit. The tribe looks at the blown up alligator carcass in the water and begins to cheer, Hooray you blew up our god, thanks, and walks away. And those who lived, presumably lived happily ever after.
Not great by an stretch of the means, but despite having a super cheap ass alligator that you only catch glimpses of his eye or parts of his mouth and never see him in his entirety it is not really a dull movie and much better then last years entry for Tentacles. Mostly known for Torso and Mountain of the Cannibal God director Sergio Martino definitely delivered an entertaining enough movie with probably a minuscule budget. Sadly though, for this being an exploitation flick there is zero nudity or gore. A few red splashes in the water, but that is it. A little of alligator chomping could have escalated this movie to more of a cult status. But despite all that there is actually more of a deeper message going on here, one of developers going on to native soil and destroying the land to exploit it's natural habit for profit and greed. A tale that still holds true today. With that being said, seems like we could use more Alligator gods eating people, oh Kruma come back to us.
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