Thanks to the incredible success Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, from the mid ‘70s to the early
‘80s, audiences were inundated with countless “animal
attack/revenge” films, the likes of which not seen since
the atomic era films of the ‘50s. These movies ranged
from decent, like the surprisingly impressive Orca:
The Killer Whale, to the laughably inept – Alligator, to the completely unwatchable
-- Slugs (couldn’t you just, oh I don’t
know… walk away.) ‘Laughably inept’ is a
term that could describe thousands of movies and it is a pretty
damned derogatory one. I am happy to say that Sergio Martino’s The Big Alligator River isn’t laughably
inept, but it is enjoyably inept.
 The
story goes like this. White people decide it would be cool
to build hotel Pleasure House in the middle of some foreign
land. They even enlist the native black population, the Kuma
tribe, to build the hotel for them. How entrepreneurial of
them! Well they are almost done, so they hire Daniel (Claudio
Cassinelli) to take photos for magazine advertisements and
Ringo Starr’s wife to translate the native tongue and
to show some gams. After arriving, Daniel’s model ran
off with a native boy to have sex on a canoe. You might as
well call them Claudia Jennings because soon they’ll
be gator bait.
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After the natives get word of this, they know that
it must be the alligator god Krooka! This is odd, because
as Barbara Bach points out, “alligators don’t
live in the orient.” Apparently no one told them that African tribes don’t live in the orient either,
but I digress. The tribe warns the foreigners to leave, as
does an insane hermit missionary; but capitalistic hotel owner
Mel Ferrer naturally isn’t going to hear any of this.
He decides he is going to open his hotel THAT day. Meanwhile,
Barbara gets kidnapped by the Kumas and tied to a raft as
a provocative sacrifice
for Krooka! Meanwhile, with the tribe thinking that it is
the white people’s fault that Krooka! is back, they
decide to kill everyone in sight as a sacrifice. If this movie
were re-titled “Kill Whitey” it would have made
millions on 42nd street.  Can Daniel save Ali? Can they stop
Krooka!? Will the LAPD stop the rioting? Saying yes to all
these questions wouldn’t be spoiling a thing (although
it would mean lying, because the LAPD aren’t in it at
all). The fun here is in the awesome and over-the-top execution.
The score is awesome too, and should be released on CD. Seriously,
it is like Morricone when he goes goddamned nuts (see his
Exorcist II score).
The finale is full of everything that that makes genre cinema
worth watching. Poor acting, force-delivered dialog, women
in wet clothing, shit blowing the HELL up and horrible effects.
Praise be to Krooka! that NoShame has released such a rare
and amazing film to the DVD owning world.
 Presentation
The 2.35:1 anamorphic
transfer on The Big Alligator River is truly amazing. That
is, until the last few seconds before the closing credits
when there is a drastic shift in video quality. The rest of
the film is pretty awesome though. The darks in the finale
are deep and allow the fires to burn nicely against them in
the finale. An excellent transfer as a whole, even surpassing
the already big expectations one has from a NoShame film.
Audio again comes through perfectly clear in both Italian
and English tracks. I highly recommend watching this film
a second time with the English dub. It is completely amazing
and actually adds quite a bit of comic tone to this film.
Intended or not, it is hilarious either way. English subtitles
are included as usual.
Extras
In the Croc’s
nest – (34:49)
This featurette starts with a very frank interview with Sergio
Martino where he discusses how the film was one of the last
Italian films to get true world-wide distribution. He also
mentions the non-difficulties of working with ex-Bond girls
(Barbara was apparently afraid of snakes) and other interesting
stories. Then we move to Antonello Geleng, the production
designer. He discusses in great detail how difficult it was
to build, and film on the flowing raft used in the finale.
He also talks a great deal of the miniatures used, which are
pretty good. Most interesting is his explanation of a film’s
release cycle in the ‘A-B-C-grade’ cinemas, and
how films like The Big Alligator River would be shown for
many weeks. My only real complaint is that there is too much
that isn’t related to the film. Still, what is here
is fascinating.
Original English Theatrical Trailer – (2:47)
Original Italian Theatrical Trailer – (2:48)
This is essentially the same trailer, with only the credits
being in their respective languages, and the distributor tag
attached to the Italian one. Both trailers are in various
degrees of decay, which only serve to show how amazing the
transfer is and how much work went into the restoration.
Poster Gallery – (0:59)
A selection of posters and other press materials used to promote
the film, accompanied by the film soundtrack. Neat, but short.
 As
always, the booklet never ceases to be informative. This beefy
14-page booklet has an essay on animal revenge, which seems
to be too busy categorizing what shouldn’t be considered
the genre, instead of concentrating on what makes a good or
bad film. It also has pretty good detailed liner notes on
the film. Lastly there are bios for Sergio Martino (the same
as past releases), Barbara Bach, Mel Ferrer and Claudio Cassinelli.
 Fine
The
Big Alligator River is a movie for people who love bad movies, not even just animal
revenge films, but really bad films. The film is every bit
as enjoyable as House
of the Dead or Troll 2. The
only really surprising thing is that it came from a director
who made three progressively great giallo films, and a slew
of other genuinely great genre films. (The
Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, Case
of the Scorpion’s Tail, and Your Vice)
NoShame deserves tons of accolades for their Sergio Martino
Collection line of discs. I can only hope there will be more
to come and all of them get the quality attention they have
so far.
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