Giant Crocodile

Instead of starting with a list of my favorite disaster movies (although that is sure to come!), I think my most recent disaster movie watch rates a blog entry. Be forewarned: my definition of a disaster movie is pretty darn fluid. If it involves a lot of people dying/being blown up/infected/or generally speaking scared I'll watch it at least once. I don't like slasher movies though, so they do NOT count!

Blood Surf (Krocodylus)

I rented Blood Surf because I thought it was a shark movie! I belong to one of the movies through the mail clubs and did not read the description carefully. Despite my initial disappointment due to the 'bait and switch' title, the movie was pretty satisfying as an animal attack disaster movie. The plot revolves around a bunch of surfers and movie producers that want to make a documentary about blood surfing. The idea behind this novel sport it to chum the waters, attract sharks, and film the surfers as they dizzyingly defy death. The two surfers and the two movie producers commission a boat and head out to shark-infested waters with a family of locals (locale is vague..generic island nation, lots of exoticism at work). After a few shots of surfing with some superimposed sharks swimming below, the movie gives up on the sharks and introduces the very large crocodile with a mysterious spurt of blood. I'm pretty sure the blood spurt was from a shark getting eaten, which pretty much ended all shark involvement in this movie. You can predict the rest of the plot. All three of the locals get eaten. One of the surfers gets eaten, as does the Ahab/Quint like character & his girlfriend. A few pirates get eaten too. Did I mention that there were pirates? Yep, this movie also involved pirates.

It was also really unintentionally funny.

Things I learned from Blood Surf:

1. Large crocodiles like deserted islands surrounded by-shark infested waters. If you are dumb enough to surf or plan a pleasure cruise in these waters, you will get eaten. This should seem obvious, but somehow this movie was green-lighted anyway.

2. The above mentioned crocodile readily snacks on locals and tourists alike. Following typical horror story paradigms, having sex pretty much seals the deal. Given the amount of semi-pornographic sex scenes found in the movie, you can see why so many people ended up as crocodile food.

3. People eating crocodiles are like all of the bad guys from scary movies-- you can shoot them, blow them up, etc. but they are STILL going to be alive at the end and eat at least one more of the supposed survivors.

Overall, I'd give it a B for fabulously fake crocodile eating action.

In addition to crocodile eating fun found in Krocodylus, I found the movie interesting because it managed to combine soft-core pornography, eroticism as exoticism, a strong female character, AND a damsel in distress ending all within 84 minutes. I liked that the female movie producer (Cecily) was the person filming from in the water during both the blood surfing and the crocodile hunting. She also managed to impale one of the pirates after he attempted to sexually assault her. Without condoning death by stake as a valid response to assault, I like that the movie avoided a gratuitous rape or attempted rape scene and let Cecily maintain some power. Yet, this same woman needed to be saved from the sharks when she became frightened and rescued from the crocodile by the remaining surfer at the end of the movie. The young local girl, Lemmya, was also such a stereotypical example of the allure of the exotic. Apparently, young local women of any island locale are unbelievably attracted to drunk, sloppy, immature American men. The men in the movie didn't fare much better. They were all either immature and cocky (surfers), spineless (the male movie producer), or would-be rapists (pirates). The only man with seemingly redeemable qualities,Dirks--the revenge seeking ex-pleasure boat captain, won his girlfriend in a game of cards and continued to treat her like chattel.

In terms of feminist fun, it gets a D for the blatant sexism, bigotry (the pirates are locals) and general gender stereotyping.


~spoiler alert!~
I was disappointed that the crocodile was impaled on a rock at the end of the movie and 2 people were still alive. Some scary music as the camera panned away made me hope that there would be a shot of another crocodile on the island (maybe it's mother!) or at the very least some little crocodile eggs cracking open ominously. No such luck.