Rating: D
Dir: Stanley Pomianowski
Star: Chuck Fusca, Rachel Comeau, Jim Serrano, Andy Gion
This seemed like an appropriate follow-up to Graveyard Shark, both being about monstrous human-animal hybrids roaming the countryside and causing mayhem. However, Crocodylus quickly outstays its welcome, and becomes an exercise in testing the viewer’s stamina. Not that Shark was perfect. Far from it. However, after sitting through this, I have a better appreciation for its qualities. Crocodylus leans much more deliberately into the comedic elements, which Shark let flow organically from its premise. Despite a couple of funny lines riffing off other, better movies, e.g. “We’re gonna need a bigger float,” this isn’t just swinging and missing. The wild flailing which ensues is closer to a man trying to swat a fly with a sledgehammer.
The hero is mildly incompetent private eye, Harry Bates (Fusca), still nursing a broken heart from a recent painful break-up. He gets hired by femme fatale Allie Glades (Comeau) to look for her missing brother Mark, who vanished after taking an experimental drug that sent his cancer into remission. And this is where the problems start, because Allie isn’t the drop-dead goddess needed for the role. Oh, she’s reasonably attractive, but in a “girl next door” way, rather than Barbara Stanwyck from Double Indemnity. Harry needs to be considerably more hard-boiled as well. Both, however, are impeccable characters when placed beside Police Chief Rex (Gion), who sports a bizarre, utterly terrible and highly annoying English accent. With hindsight, his arrival is when this jumped the shark crocodylus.
The main cast is completed by Dr. Williams (Serrano), the mad scientist behind the serum which created the Crocodylus. His goal seems to be an endless source of croc tacos, though let’s say, the flaws in this plan seem less than adequately considered. Turns out the results are not limited to those directly injected with the doctor’s creation. If you get scratched by the Crocodylus, you will turn into one. It explains how we get a female of the species roaming around too – still in her bra and panties, the latter with a hole for her tail. It’s here the second part of the title comes into play, though (again, in contrast to Shark) the movie skirts around the sleazy implications, rather than wallowing in them.
While this is a sequel of sorts to 2017’s Crocodylus, it appears to stand on its own. I won’t be revisiting the predecessor, because life’s too short. The effects here are generally terrible, with the creature never even slightly convincing. In its defense, the aim would seem to be a parody of fifties creature features like Attack of the Giant Leeches – which make the obvious nods to film noir an ill fit. Probably the only section to make a lasting impression is where Harry imagines a future with his half-Crocodylus son, playing catch and attending graduation. While I still can’t say I laughed, it was bizarre enough to make an impression. The rest mostly plays like a SyFy Original, remade by Comedy Central. And not one of the better ones either.