‘Gator Creek’ Review
Stars: Athena Strates, Madalena Aragão, Elisha Applebaum, Mohammed Mansaray, Andonis Anthony | Written by Ashley Holberry, Gavin Cosmo Mehrtens | Directed by Taneli Mustonen, Brad Watson
Gator Creek, or The Bayou depending on where you see it, is a new man versus nature thriller which pits survivors of a plane crash in the Louisiana swampland against a horde of mutant gators. The film opens with a DEA raid on a meth lab somewhere in the bayou which results in the gators getting dosed with various chemicals, which seem to be the gator equivalent of steroids, making them bigger, stronger and much more aggressive.
Kyle (Athena Strates; The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, The Dating Game Killer) has other things on her mind however. She recently lost her brother and is about to journey from Texas to the Florida Keys to scatter his ashes. However her friend Alice (Madalena Aragão; Quaranteens, Fatima) has sold her car which means involving Malika (Elisha Applebaum; Undercover Hooligan, No Reasons) who Kyle has some negative history with the trip as well as her boyfriend Sam (Mohammed Mansaray; The Cut, Royal Shakespeare Company: Much Ado About Nothing) Malika has also arranged a surprise, she’s gotten then seats on a charter, even though Kyle hates to fly.
Of course, the pilot Frank (Andonis Anthony; Emmerdale Farm, Soldiers of the Damned) is an alcoholic and the plane a piece of shit, so its no surprise when they end up crashing in the swamps. As they say in the movies, the lucky ones died in the crash.
Gator Creek should have been a no-brainer, strand the cast in the bayou and let them fight with the gators in order to escape. Instead, the term is best applied to the filmmakers who have put together a film that’s set in the American South but filmed in London and The Philippines with a cast who can’t deliver a generic American accent let alone sound Southern.
But that’s only the starting point, as the characters proceed to make bad choice after bad choice as if they were trying to get themselves killed. From the pilot’s failure to file a flight plan so nobody knows where to look for them to one of the survivor’s decision to grab some gator eggs, we’re repeatedly told how much they sell for so you know it’s going to happen. The gators are CGI and, while they’re occasionally convincing, most of the time they look off and nothing like the real ones we see in stock footage. They are, however, more convincing than some of the human cast.
The script by first-time writers Ashley Holberry and Gavin Cosmo Mehrtens feels more like a collection of ideas from better films loosely strung together and populated with mostly unlikable archetypes. Directors Taneli Mustonen (Lake Bodom, The Twin) and Brad Watson (For We Are Many, The Siege) have experience with both horror and action films but can’t manage to extract more than a scattering of jump scares from the script. Even a scene of them trying to sneak past sleeping gators fails to build much tension, in part because you can easily guess who isn’t going to make it. They do manage to muster up some energy for the film’s fiery climax at least.
For those looking for some bloody attack scenes, there are a few decent effects but most of the attacks are either off-screen or filmed in quick cuts where you can’t tell what’s going on. There are also several night scenes where it’s too dark to make out what’s happening.
Gator Creek manages to waste a setup that should have guaranteed plenty of jump scares and some bloody action. See 1979’s The Great Alligator for an example of this done to cheesy perfection, or more recently The Flood with its gators in a prison mayhem. There’s even Attack of the Meth Gator which at least had the sense to play itself for laughs. If you choose to watch this you’ll find yourself up Gator Creek without a paddle.
*½ 1.5/5
Currently in release in the US from Vertical Entertainment under the title The Bayou, Gator Creek will get a digital release in the UK and Ireland on March 24th via Vertigo Releasing.
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