Review of Croc (2007) by Larry Y — 05 Oct 2014

For a lot of people, the famously awful Sc-Fi Channel feature films are a hilarious way to spend an afternoon, but I have never found anything remotely funny about any of them. "Croc" is no exception.

This film is just bad, made cheaply to earn a quick buck and faint praise from the handful of people who will relish its ineptitude, and in my book there's nothing funny about that. This is clearly a copy of "Jaws", but to even mention that film in connection with this one is an absolute outrage.

The attack scenes are poorly staged and un uneasy mix of CGI creatures, stock footage of real crocodiles and gallons of fake blood to cover up all the poor make-up effects. Director Stewart Raffill used to make bad-to-mediocre theatrical films, but this represents his farther fall from grace yet. This is a manufactured product more than a real film, and quite frankly that's distasteful. The makes don't even focus on the killer animal for a great deal of the running time, as a lot of extraneous subplots are thrown in to pad things out.

We get all of the usual elements: a romance, a greedy land developer and evil tax collectors. None of them really have a place in this film. And then, of course, Michael Madsen shows up to collect a paycheck in the Robert Shaw role, and it's clear that his prime is long past him. Nothing, not even money, can justify his appearance in "Croc". This is just shoddy filmmaking, and frankly, there's nothing funny about it.