A Horror Film Blog

I enjoyed this.  It is obviously a low budget effort, with just three actors and a limited set (cabin / woods) but whatever money they had was spent wisely, getting capable performers and splashing out (pun intentional) on lots of gory wolf action. Has anything nice ever happened when people go to an isolated cabin in the woods? The first half is building up characters and relationships.  The second half is a fight for survival against some mean doggos.  Neither part is quite on-the-money but it is still engaging enough.   The characters and the conflicts are  a bit stock - you get the feeling we're in a mash up of the Hunger Games (Tough girl with bow in a love triangle with her rugged best friend and her soft city boyfriend) and ... uh ... something with wolves.  But the acting and setting is good.   The mis-en-scene helps you work out it is a love triangle, and it ain't the boys who are hot for each other The second half feels a bit rushed...

Alligator is directed by Lewis Teague and written by John Sayles, who also went onto direct a string of very good films in the 80s and 90s ( The Return of the Secaucus 7 , City of Hope , Lone Star , Limbo , Men With Guns ). Termigator III: Rise of the Munchines It's tempting, given Sayles's involvement to try to see a bit more quality in this film than it really has.  It's a big, dumb film about an alligator terrorising Chicago.  But though Sayles may have writer it, it bears the hallmarks of Teague's mentor, Roger Corman.  It's a rather silly B movie with no real notable qualities. I did want to like the film more than I did, and wanted to see some strands of quality that would raise it above the run of the mill Corman fare.  But if we're honest, if the same film was presented to us without the revered name attached, we shrug, mutter something about "Just a Troma film without the boobs" and go back top bemoaning the lack of quality films. Perhaps Sayl...

** Contains spoilers - but none that could spoil your enjoyment of this film, for it is not possible to enjoy it on any level.  Also some trigger warnings : rape and sexual assault ** If you ever get the chance to see a Finnish film called Bunny, the Killer Thing - don't. Longer version: I watched it recently on Shudder and wrote a review so caustic it seems they have pulled the film altogether.  Long may it stay pulled. In short: a giant crazy rabbit with a huge schlong terrorizes a group of horny teens in a remote cabin. That makes it sound interesting, a sort of lurid parody of every slasher film ever made.  It isn't, and it isn't.  Don't see it. Longer version: an unidentified man and a woman arrive at an isolated cabin.  They are surprised to discover there are already people there.  They are even more surprised when they are tasered, and the woman shot in the head with a shot gun.  At least, for her, the ordeal is over.  her partner is injec...