Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Barbara Bach | ... | Alice Brandt | |
Claudio Cassinelli | ... | Daniel Nessel | |
Mel Ferrer | ... | Joshua | |
Romano Puppo | ... | Peter | |
![]() |
Fabrizia Castagnoli | ... | Minou's Mother |
![]() |
Enzo Fisichella | ... | Maurice, lover of Minou's Mother |
![]() |
Lory Del Santo | ... | Jane |
![]() |
Anny Papa | ... | Laura |
Bobby Rhodes | ... | Joshua's forman | |
![]() |
Clara Colosimo | ... | Tourist |
![]() |
Peter Boom | ... | Tourist With Rifle |
![]() |
Giulia D'Angelo | ... | British Tourist |
![]() |
Marco Mastantuono | ... | British Tourist |
![]() |
Piero Jossa | ||
![]() |
Marco Giannoni |
A tourist resort in Africa finds itself at the mercy of a huge man-eating crocodile from a local native legend which the croc is the incarnation of a native god angered by the intrusion of the tourists on its nesting ground. After a group of indigenous natives are subsequently killed and eaten, the rest that are still alive naturally blame the tourists and they set out to kill them. All while the survivors try to rally on a boat with the hungry crocodile in the water, and the blood-thirsty natives wanting retribution on land waiting for them. Written by Anonymous
Although this is billed as a Jaws rip-off, the whole theme park threatened by a huge lizard sounds a lot like Jurassic Park too me, more than ten years before Michael Crichton published that book.
In some country, somewhere, photographer Claudio Cassinelli has been employed to take publicity shots for new resort owner Mel Ferrer. This new resort is seems to be smack bang in the middle of a jungle surrounded by hostile country and natives who help the newcomers, but also seem pretty superstitious and twitchy. Claudio, like in Island of The Fishmen, loves to do a bit of snooping, and finds that Mel isn't beneath some dodgy antics to get the tourists in, like having sidekick Romano Puppo feed musk rats to the local crocodile population.
Also like in Island of the Fishmen, Claudio sets his eyes on Barbara Bach, Ferrer's assistant who can talk with the natives (basically the same role she had in Island of the Fishmen then!). Whereas everything seems to be going okay for everyone, there are rumblings from the natives that all these newcomers have angered the God of the river, and that he's come back as an Alligator (not a crocodile - they do have a discussion about this). So, is monster Alligator real, and more importantly, how many people is it going to eat?
This is a film of two halves, really. There constant bickering of the characters and the lack of gore is a complete letdown, and yet the elevated cheese factor completely saves the film in the end. While it takes ages to get to any action, it's worth waiting until the film gets to Richard Johnson's appearance as a crazy priest. His demented performance as a man driven insane by the alligator is hilarious. Director Martino also saves most of the action until the end, and although we never do get a gore-fest, the alligator does get to go radgy and attack every person in the resort, at exactly the same time every person in the resort is trying to escape from the angry natives!
Although made in 1979, just check out that eighties vibe with the dancing tourists. I was already to hate this one but then Martino pulls it out of the bag in the last thirty minutes. Well done m'man! Martino's next four films are comedies, so I'm giving them a miss.