Gator Creek Review

Not a fan of gators? You might want to hide behind the sofa for Gator Creek, then…

Who doesn’t love a good old-fashioned creature feature? Quite often, they can be utterly terrible however, done right, they can be spectacular. One thing’s for sure though, they’re nearly always an absolute blast and Gator Creek is the latest in line that offers a whole host of people up for monstrous creatures to feast on. Vacation turns to disaster when Kyle (Athena Strates) and her friends escape a plane crash in the desolate Louisiana everglades, only to discover there’s something more dangerous lurking in the shallows.

Gator Creek is like if someone watched Cocaine Bear, mashed a random predator and drug together, then made a homage on much less of a budget. That being said, it’s far from the car crash you may expect because it is certainly aware of what it is, owning it totally and delivering total B-movie tosh some might see as a guilty pleasure. Opening with a drug raid on a meth lab that sees gallons of the drug dumped into the water, which slowly makes its way to alligators native to the region and into their bloodstream, it takes a little while to pick up pace again as everything is set in place for carnage to ensue.

US!!! WE ARE A SMALL, INDEPENDENT FILM WEBSITE WITH NO BIG BACKERS SO IF YOU LOVE OUR SITE AND OUR WRITERS, PLEASE CONSIDER HELPING US TO KEEP FILM JOURNALISM ALIVE!

Taneli Mustonen and Brad Watson have some fun with the kills throughout the rest of the film, yet it really fails to do many creative things with the concept. It was funny watching the bear go crazy in Cocaine Bear but this just feels subpar in comparison, save for one scene where they’re chasing down the characters at such a rapid rate. The effects are obviously rather ropey too, the lower budget shining through in all its glory and adding to the obscure charm of the film.

The performances are very much the standard you’d expect in a film of this ilk – serviceable with plenty of overacting going on. It’s nice to see some growth from at least one character, Athena Strates’ Kyle going from the quiet girl to warrior badass in an incredibly over-the-top finale. The alligators are what everyone is here to see and they are undoubtedly entertaining at the very least. So after a bear on cocaine and some gators on meth, it’s safe to say this won’t be a cinematic universe many will be fully invested in. Every once in a while though, it’s fun to watch a film as trashy as Gator Creek.