Welcome to Cultoween! Last year, we took a look at some completely random horror gems from any year, which resulted in a lot of possibilities – of course, we had the whole wide genre to sift through! This year, we are limiting things a bit. There’s still the randomness, still the surprise, but instead of allowing for any horror movie, the selection must come from our own collection! We’re picking unseen movies that we currently physically own! A collector’s worst nightmare is spending money on a disc and then never getting around to watching that, so we’re rectifying that and digging into some titles we own but have never watched.
Filmed back-to-back with its sequel Killer Crocodile II, Killer Crocodile is a Fabrizio de Angelis-directed film that is obviously an Italian Jaws ripoff through and through. The film details the exploits of a group of ecologists who are studying the radioactive pollution of swampland where the local businesses have been dumping waste. Of course, there’s a giant man-eating crocodile who has been growing thanks to the radioactivity.
Like fellow Italians Enzo G. Castellari and Bruno Mattei, De Angelis worked on a number of… let’s call them “inspired” films reminiscent of popular American cinema. Much of the time he produced, but he also directs Killer Crocodile, hewing pretty closely to Jaws‘ story beats while deviating just enough to lose some of the charisma of the original.
While Killer Crocodile can often excel in its bloodier moments – and, surprisingly, the actual mechanical croc looks pretty good – the quieter moments of the film can get pretty boring. It also often feels like the script is having a laugh at conservationists while at the same time pointing out the dangers of ecologic pollution, considering the protagonists’ extremely frustrating recapitulations not to harm or kill the crocodile and its offspring.
However, the best parts of Killer Crocodile come from its unintentional humor. Its Quint stand-in, Joe (Thomas Moore), steals the show due to his ridiculous antics and a seemingly personal vendetta with the crocodile. There’s an excellent passing of the torch with a literal hat-throwing sequence. And what movie about a killer aquatic animal would be complete without actually surfing its back?
Maybe, but not in the usual ways. This has no spooky holiday atmosphere, it’s set in a tropical locale so it doesn’t feel like classic autumn, and killer crocs aren’t necessarily haunting or scary. But watching with a group of people all attuned to the same sense of humor and sporting a “so-bad-it’s-good” attitude might make for a good Halloween viewing experience, so long as it’s paired with a much better movie in second billing.
Good for parties.
Watch with a group of friends and drink whenever anyone makes a bone-headed decision, and your Halloween will surely be bleary when you’re through. But save your sanity and don’t double-feature the sequel as well, or the Anaconda remake we covered last year in Cultoween.
