So this is a movie about alligators. They eat people and wreak havoc for about ninety minutes, and that's basically the movie. In a way this is the whole review since the material speaks for itself; there's no filler, the small cast of stock characters do their jobs well, and there are no attempts to make this a parody like dozens of embarrassing straight to video creature features. It's grisly and satisfying and in general it looks pretty good from a production design perspective. But best of all it never outstays its welcome and despite the unlikely premise it never becomes too silly. Since we're here though I guess I'll delve deeper into the quagmire and examine just why this is all so effective.
The easy route would probably be to make something like this into an over the top comedy. Something like Lake Placid can always be enjoyable after all. When one of the producers is Sam Raimi the temptation must have been there. But generally this is pretty restrained, and beyond a few sudden death moments it has a fairly suspense driven tone. The actors involved do get covered in suspicious goo, bugs, and filthy water, at various stages of the action, but any actual slapstick is absent. Similarly the director of Switchblade Romance Alexandre Aja never pushes the violence to the expected extremes. There are broken bones and nasty bites to contend with, but it's all within the confines of a mainstream crowd pleaser.
The end result is a solid piece of nature versus human entertainment. Haley (Kaya Scodelario) is a competitive swimmer and Dave (Barry Pepper) is her competitive father. After various off screen dramas they've become distant, but when a hurricane arrives at their old Florida home she decides to break the police road blocks to make sure he's safe. The pieces all fall into place and soon the family dispute will have to be solved by more with than just words once the flood waters and the swamp creatures arrive. It's a well oiled machine that covers little that is unexpected, but still manages to be just creative and engaging enough. Like any back to basics predator on the loose movie what works here is down to the execution, which is all very good.
Once Haley finds out why her dad is stuck in the crawlspace of the old house the clock starts ticking as the weather warnings get more serious and the reptiles start to multiply. They might be slow after making it on to land (from what seems to be an amusingly large basement drainpipe of some kind) but the storm is constantly raising the water level. If they stay put and don't get chewed on they will drown anyway so the race is on. Various obstacles and injuries don't make this an easy task, and local residents (both law enforcement and law breakers) are less than helpful. But the small space and the small number of characters mean this is all done with a lot of tension.
Visually it's a pretty dark experience as you'd imagine, though the lower levels of Dave's house seem to have just enough artistic spaces in the brickwork to make the lighting interesting. Haley's use of a wind-up torch and emergency flares adds some style and suspense to the situation. The camera work is often right at the water level, so even if the brightness levels don't make sense it's shot with an unnerving perspective. The set ups are never too outlandish but the claustrophobic location is used well, and some of the later set pieces above ground are done with panache. The moody atmosphere also helps make the visual effects look more convincing, and the alligators themselves are a striking presence. They might not move realistically at times but it's more fun that way.
The human element on the other hand can be a little dry, particularly during all the parental melodrama, which doesn't break any new ground. The two central performances are good if unexceptional, although the subplot about winning swimming trophies are very on-the-nose. Still, the later developments about the cost of single-minded ambition is an interesting inclusion once Haley and Dave open up. Maybe there's a message in here about feeding the wrong type of animal inside yourself... or the dangers of listening to the reptile part of your brain too often. Maybe that's reading into this too much in the silliest way possible. This is a case of enjoying what you're given, which overall is a slick thriller that makes good use of a fairly low budget.
It's a tale that's never more than it needs to be, and anyone looking for something fully character driven is probably going to be let down. There's never a lot of charisma from the cast or too much in terms of depth and development. But the parts that work are compelling, even if the glib tone of the song playing over the end credits would have been welcome earlier on in the film itself. But perhaps the focus on display is an asset of the production. This isn't the most memorable story of its kind, but it delivers exactly what it advertises; it's slimy, scaly and bloody in all the right proportions. It's a movie about alligators eating people and in this case that's enough.
4/5
