Supergator (2007)

	Director: Brian Clyde
	Starring: Brad Johnson, Kelly McGillis, Bianca Lawson, Mary Alexander Stiefvater
	Run Time: 90 mins
	Certificate: Not released in UK at time of review
	Rating:

Plot
A genetically-enhanced prehistoric alligator escapes the confines of a bio-engineering research centre and heads into the jungle on an island in Hawaii. Unfortunately for a team of geologists monitoring a local volcano, the "supergator" begins to kill them and other tourists off. The survivors team up with an alligator hunter in an attempt to stop the beast before it reaches a luxury holiday resort packed with tourists.

Review
With an clichéd story, hokey CGI monster and a cast of has-beens and never-will be's, Supergator could have been the next film off the production line of the Sci-Fi Channel. A sequel in all but name to Dinocroc, Supergator bares all of the hallmarks of a dead-on-arrival Sci-Fi Channel original but it isn't one! In fact, Roger Corman wanted to produce a sequel to the pretty awful Dinocroc but the suits at the Sci-Fi Channel said they didn't like sequels (with the exceptions of sequels to Pumpkinhead, Return of the Living Dead, Lake Placid, House of the Dead, Anaconda and Python - clearly they hate sequels) and passed up on the opportunity. Not one to shirk making another rubbish low grade romp, Corman went ahead and produced the sequel and used the moniker of Supergator to differentiate the two films. Unfortunately for him (and even more unfortunately for us), there's no way you can differentiate between the two films. What's next? Dinocroc Vs Supergator? (According to IMDB, it's actually in pre-production!)

Anyway on to the film itself. And let's get to the only reason you could possibly want to subject yourself to this - the gator. Believe me, it looks as bad as you'd expect. It hardly looks "super" in any sense of the word and just looks like a run-of-the-mill dinosaur. And it isn't even that big. For attack scenes, a fake head is used for the close-ups when it's biting into limbs. But it's hard to see what is going on as the attacks are edited so rapidly that you just see teeth and blood. What happened to seeing someone being bitten in half or swallowed whole by the monster? Pretty much every attack on land is filmed in this way so there's plenty of bone-crunching and chewing but you don't get a good look at what is going on. I think they just used the same footage over and over again. The gator is very well fed I might add but there are that many random people just falling over in front of it waiting to be eaten, it gets a little boring after a while. I'd rather see less people and more developed characters running around which mean that when they do meet their fates, it's just that little bit more emotional. But the film is just a basic cycle of talking, feeding time, talking, feeding time, etc. And I didn't think that gators needed to eat every five minutes but this has an insatiable appetite. But then I forgot, this is no ordinary gator, it's a supergator (I can just see the monster ripping open it's chest to reveal a large S on it's chest).

Clearly based on the Jaws character model, we have 3 main characters in pursuit of the beast with the gator specialist, the gator hunter and the ordinary guy dragged into an extraordinary situation. Only Brad Johnson, Kelly McGillis and John Colton are no Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss or Robert Shaw! You'll know what to expect from each of them - the hunter taking a personal vendetta against the gator, the scientist wanting to preserve it and the other guy just wanting to get the hell out of there. There are a lot of hot chicks in this film but alas none of them get naked. There is (presumably) a running gag about one of a pair of supermodels who escape from the supergator only to spend the next half of the film running around the jungle in one of the smallest bikinis known to man. She doesn't do anything except run around until finally the gator catches up with her. It's clear why she was cast in the role but I much preferred her attractive friend who was killed a few minutes earlier whilst holding the world's smallest twig in an attempt to fight the gator off. Anyway these hotties in bikinis more than made up for their lack of acting talents with their ample charms. Exploitation at it's finest! Unfortunately their pointless characters are recreated throughout the film with other groups of random people who are wondering around the jungle for no reason other than to feed the beast. There's a group of stoners looking for some miracle plant who have a few lines and then get devoured. There's a couple of other chicks walking around the jungle who say a few lines before being gator-chow. There's the guy who runs the local tourist complex who is, shockingly, given a few lines of dialogue before the gator catches up with him as well.

Verdict
Supergator is precisely what you will expect from Roger Corman so your tolerance for this will depend on your tolerance for the man himself. The film is competently made for it's low budget but it's lousy CGI effects, it's lack of any real story, it's terrible acting and it's all-round cheesiness mean that this is one gator you'd rather be wearing as a handbag than watching on the big screen.