CROC! (aka Crocodile Vengeance) * UK 2022 Dir: Paul W. Franklin. 84 mins
The 2007 movie CROC (minus the THEM!-style exclamation mark adorning this one) was an entirely forgettable waste of Michael Madsen’s under-used screen talents…but at least it was vaguely watchable. Its namesake (a rare British foray into the realm of crap CG monster movies) offers a feature length expansion of that genuinely amusing wedding party sequence from Lewis Teague’s rightly well regarded ALLIGATOR. It showcases what might be cinema’s worst ever digitally-created monster crocodile (complete with giant, distracting, flapping tongue) and the most unlikeable ensemble cast in recent memory. Though, admittedly, at least one of the dialogue exchanges almost makes up for the agony of sitting through the whole thing:
“I thought there was something on my face” / “Could be if you wanted”.
“My heart is saying no” / “But your dick says yes”.
After the unconvincing chomping of a camping couple (“Probably a badger”), charisma-vacuum former ranger Dylan (Mark Haldor), who appears inexplicably irresistible to women, arrives at the Tudor manor house venue for his daughter Lisa’s (Sian Altman) upcoming wedding and immediately shags the owner after a porn-style introduction. The Wi-Fi is crap, the groom (George Nettleton) keeps quiet about the dead bridesmaid he shagged before the crocodile ate her and nobody else acts like a recognisable human being.
It builds awkwardly to a low-rent mid-point massacre rife with terrible croc / gore FX – after which the rest of the running time has characters pondering over whether crocodiles can climb stairs while a man of the cloth considers the Big Questions about God. Parts of the film suggest an intended piss-take, while others appear to be sincere attempts at emotion – but none of it manages to be half as entertaining as (the ultimately irritating) BIRDEMIC 2. The filmmaking finesse on display doesn’t extend much further than the equivalent of the writer-director repeatedly yelling “LOOK! We have a fucking DRONE!!”
Review by Steven West
CROC! (aka Crocodile Vengeance) is out now on DVD and Digital