Can’t get more basic than “Crocodile”, not “killer”, not “mutant”, nor “apocalypse”, just your plain old reptilian creature to not be confused with an alligator.
Which is arguably kind of a lie, since this is an obscure Thai monster movie that was made – in unison – “to ride Jaws’ coat-tail”. I don’t even do this on purpose, there’s that big a chance even killer croc movies somehow can be linked back to it, either due to the decade of their release or the basic plot structure and popularized cliches.
Often it’s both, as “Crocodile” was released just years after Jaws rocked the box office, AND the plot it’s virtually identical… or is it?
Not to be confused with a 1978’s Korean movie also with the international title of “Crocodile”, from which this 1979 Thai film is edited from… and by that i’d say it borrows some stock footage from the 1978 one, i don’t know to what extend, since i couldn’t find a copy of the 1978’s film, because i do believe these are two different – yet almost identical sounding – movies, not one and the same.
Which is extra sad but hilarious knowing the very next year Sompote Sands would recycle footage from this for his “Kraitong”, based on a Thai fable about the Crocodile King and has child being eaten in intro, alongside “crocodile wives”, so yeah that sound bonkers enough to warrant a spotlight here in the future.
Back to “Crocodile”, what i DO know it’s the Jaws allegations are not allegations, as the very first thing to shown (and heard) are credits over a synthizer cover of the Jaws theme, for fuck’s sake, not that stops them basically being cheeky and pretty much asking to be sued by John Williams.
And in terms of plots yep, it’s a blatant rip-off, it follows every story beat and plot point from Jaws (aside from the dickwad Major, swapped for a reporter than tags along the hunting party), plays it serious too, but aside from the good photography (which is a wash when my copy of the movie is clearly a VHS rip of dubious quality being uploaded on Youtube), everything is FAR, FAR worse, bordering on incompent, and the noticeably low budget for the effects, with the usage of miniatures kaiju eiga style, but they’re both cheap and so barely used overall you won’t get even the usual enjoyment of seeing someone in monster suit roar and smack the shit out of carboard buildings.
Not even that kind of satisfaction.
To avoid further confusion, this is the one where two men, whom have lost their family to this giant crocodile infesting the local rivers and beaches, decide to form a party to hunt and kill it for good.
Also, the giant croc is a mutant giant croc, something to do with previous hurricanes and a previous atomic explosion, all randomly and vaguely mentioned in a passing phrase at the beginning, all with the flair of a small talk over breakfast or whatever.
Don’t get excited too, since for most of the films we don’t see any of this, i’d say we can gander at the crocodile killing people…. but even that it’s kind of a stretch, because it’s THAT kind of monster movie, where there are only “kills by implication”, as they show you the soon to be victim struggling in the water (for example), edit in footage of the killer animal, and cut away before they have to show any special effects for gore, blood or whatever. And boy how that save money!
There is some blood, eventually, but most of the action scenes where the crocodile it’s supposedly rampaging (like the one where he somehow start fires and destroys an entire village) are utter shit, just complete messes where you can barely tell what’s going on, but until the final confrontation you can notice the lack of any crocodile action on screen, aside from brief snippets that are most likely the recycled footage from the aforementioned 1978’s Korean “Crocodile”.
the dialogues are pretty bad, as it’s the just-above Godfrey quality of the english dub, but at least they’re not much in the way of absurd phrases that make for a funny out-of-context viewing, nor in the terms of the movie having actual “characters”.
To completely ruin the potentially fun experience one could squeeze out of this awful trash of a Jaws ripoff done (kinda, not really) in the japanese tradition of miniatures and suits… there’s the fact they actually killed a crocodile for it, a real one, and we’re almost shown its entire killing & evisceration process to you.
And it’s not even the titular one, it’s a random ass crocodile most likely killed (or killed and then opened up with a knife on camera) for some ritual or shit that still HAS nothing to do with the plot.
Severely verging on the edge of incompetence, sinking to the same depths as other Jaws ripoffs (down to using stock footage and begging to be sued thanks to the obvious rip-off of the Jaws theme), with a very small touch of tokusatsu style special effects, Crocodile is still as cheap and yet even more forgettable than many others Jaws rip-offs of the era.
If it wasn’t for the fact this hails from Thailand, i wouldn’t be talking about it, because it isn’t even that unwatchable either, nor it stands out in a good or bad way from his many “siblings”, even with the gratuitous animal cruelty this is so typical in a completely negative fashion.
This is just for those who wanna watch ‘em all for collection/completition’s sake more than anything else, some boxes in a checklist to fill in.
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