Alligator 4K 1980

All major cities have their own urban legends - of Jack the Leaper, of the lake monster, of haunted houses. In the United States, there is a famous legend of small crocodiles that lived in New York City's sewers. One of its sources is that at one time in the United States alligator cubs were popular pets. When the babies grew up or simply bored their owners, they were flushed down the toilet. So did the father of the girl who brought the little reptile home. Once in the sewers, the little alligator took root there and began to grow, and grow to unbelievable size, eating the corpses of animals, stuffed with growth hormones as a result of the experiments. Twelve years later, the workers who went into the sewers stop coming back. The case is handled by Inspector David Madison. The chief introduces David to Marisa, the same girl who once brought that alligator to town. Now she has grown up and has become an expert on reptiles. However, no one believes in the existence of the monster until there is evidence - photographs taken by another victim of the lizard. Then the police begin to hunt for the alligator, but to disarm the monster, which has become large and strong enough to break through the asphalt and swallow a man at once, will not be easy at all...

Movies about killer crocodiles appeared in the 70's. But they became popular as major movie villains later on. Alligator was the most famous of the first crocodile films. It earned high critical acclaim for its exploitation of the animated-horror formula established in Spielberg's Jaws. One of the keys to this formula was the low budget, focusing mainly on creating costumes and fake monsters, which did the trick, as the alligator in the film came off as realistic and impressive. To enhance the realism or on the contrary to hide unrealism they use darkening of the layout in the frame or a quick change of angles in the attack scenes. The rest in the genre depends on the talent of the director, who feels the border between serious horror and movies of B category and does not allow in the movie outright nonsense, the work of screenwriters (by the way the plot, which worked on the screenwriter of 'Piranha', absolutely not boring, interesting and sometimes not without mysteries), the efforts of actors, operators, composer work. In 'Alligator' all these budget-independent components are on an approximate level. So 'Alligator' is not the discovery of America, but it is a film worthy of attention, because it is simply a good example of the genre from the times when animated horror was still relevant and has not sunk into the deep sewer called 'Direct-to-video', where, by the way, the more budgetary, but nevertheless nightmarish and extremely exploitative sequel 'Alligator 2: Mutation' lies, which is not worth attention.