Alligator 2: The Mutation (1991)

Alligator was one of the better giant animal attack movies that came out of the post Jaws boom.  It was one heck of a cheesy B-movie, but it was so much fun and the chaos in the movie was such a delight.  People getting eaten left and right, tons of blood, it was simple and the effects were even kinda good.  If you never saw it, there is an amazing attack on a wedding which is quite unforgettable.  It took them 10 years to come out with a sequel and man does it suck!

Look, we gots ourselves a Kane Hodder.  That gator be dead meat yeehaw!

Right off the bat, the first thing that is wrong is the subtitle of this sequel:"The Mutation".  Which anyone whose seen the first movie knows this makes no sense as that was the whole point of the first movie, toxic waste causing a baby gator to mutant into this giant killer beast.  So what's different with this one?  Extra limbs, laser eyes, wings, it can talk?   Nothing at all, heck the entire movie is a retread of the original just without the budget and severely lacking in giant gator action.  While we got a huge animatronic gator in the first film, the 2nd film instead uses lot of close ups of a normal sized gator which clearly doesn't look mutated or bigger than a normal sized one.  There's a giant gator head puppet used in a couple of scenes, oh and a giant tail, but we never see the actual full gator like we did in the original.  The movie makes sure it's always dark or obscured by water so you never really see the creature that much.

Just zoom in on the gator, it will seem like it's huge on the screen.  Totally.

The plot of the film is a retread of every killer animal movie of the 70s and 80s, with people mysteriously disappearing, suspicious cop, corrupt politicians who deny anything is going on, and then a big attack finale.  Without the big spectacle of the gator attacks the first had, this movie really has nothing going for it and just is all around boring.  Most people die due to sheer stupidity by going after the gator in sewers and in swamps, when it really wouldn't be so hard to avoid the creature, but no everyone in the movie keeps going to the beast to just feed themselves up on a platter.  Expert gator hunters are brought in (including Kane Hodder) who promptly shit themselves.  The original movie felt so much bigger with big action sequences, boat chases, lots of firepower, and wild gator attack sequences in daylight and on city streets.

Carrot Top nooooo!

The movie is mostly all in the dark as we have folks bumbling about trying to find the creature and continually failing.  Eventually we have the big finale where the gator makes it's way to a carnival full of people!  Oh that sounds exciting for the big finale rampage, but nope the movie fucks that up to.  As mentioned previously we don't really see the giant gator in action.  You have some scenes of close ups of a gator head moving along the carnival with people running away, and a bunch of scenes of the tail whipping people about.  The bloody and gory carnage of the first movie is sorely missed here.  Lot of screaming and people running, but everything feels so muted and tame in this movie.  Of course the police at the end hunt down the gator with rocket launchers, which is slightly entertaining but heck they fail at making that even fun due to shitty special effects.  Remember the movie Grizzly?  They take out the bear with a rocket launcher and it's friggin hilariously over the top.  That's what Alligator 2 needed, more silly over the top action, instead of such a slow and overly serious sequel to what was such a fun B-movie. 

This is for Carrot Top!