Croc (2007): A Movie Review

Croc is a creature feature starring Michael Madsen as Croc Hawkins, a hunter tracking down a large man-eating crocodile attacking tourists and locals near Krabi, Thailand. The movie also stars Peter Tuinstra as Jack, owner of a local zoo/crocodile-farm. Elizabeth Healey plays Jack's sister Allison and Scott Hazel plays Theo, Allison's son. Besides a rampaging crocodile, Jack also has to worry about local developers trying to drive him out of business so they can take over his land. Warning: my movie review contains plot spoilers.

Croc is an above average creature feature. The movie has a nice blend of interesting storylines and kills scenes. The kill scenes aren't too overpowering and it is nice to see most of the good guys actually survive. I have grown tired of the latest movie trend of just killing everyone for the sake of killing. Besides the usual plot of oversized animal killing humans, there is also an interesting storyline with Jack and his attempts to save his tourist attraction.

The movie is very "B" in that the special effects are terrible. The movie flips back between clips of actual crocodiles swimming around and then the fake crocodile killing people. The problem is that the "real" croc and the "fake" croc looked so different in size, etc. that it was very distracting. How hard is it to make a realistic looking 20 foot croc? If Lake Placid 2 (worst croc movie ever) could do it, I don't know why this movie couldn't.

The movie has a couple of great suspenseful scenes when you are just waiting for the croc to strike. But the writer did push the limits with the scene of the boy refusing to get out of the water so the dad jokes "Fine let the croc eat you" and guess what happens...a kid gets eaten. Lesson learned, always listen to your dad even if he is drinking way too many beers and never get into the water.

My favorite scene was the bad developer getting attacked in his pool. Apparently he was blind because he couldn't see the 20 foot croc in the crystal clear water in his swimming pool. Lesson learned here, always question why your dog is barking persistently. And why oh why did his brother decided to fish his body parts out of the pool? Shouldn't he have saved that task for the police? At least he got what was coming to him.

I give the movie 3 out of 5 stars. It is definitely one of the better killer croc movies.