The Big Boom

Starring:Francesca D'Aloja, Angela Finocchiaro, Alessandro Haber, Maria Monti, Natale Tulli, Piero Natoli, Monica Bellucci, Ricky Memphis, Ludovica Modugno, Giorgio Tirabassi, Giovanni Ferreri, Beppe Fiorello, Marco Giallini, Max Mazzotta, Adriano Pappalardo
Director: Marco Risi
Studio: Terra
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

What A Croc
let's be honest
Immensely entertaining JAWS ripoff / horror trash

The Big Alligator River
Starring: Barbara Bach , Claudio Cassinelli , Mel Ferrer , Romano Puppo , and Fabrizia Castagnoli
Director: Sergio Martino
Manufacturer: Noshame
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000AQKUVI
Release Date: 2005-09-27

Description

In the tradition the classic "animal revenge" movies JAWS, PIRANHA and ANACONDA comes Sergio Martino's THE BIG ALLIGATOR RIVER, a blood-soaked tale of greed, Third World exploitation and karmic comeuppance starring Barbara Bach (BLACK BELLY OF THE TARANDULA, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME) and Claudio Cassinelli (WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOUR DAUGHTERS?, KILLER COP).

Vampire bats and cobras aren't the only sentient creatures disturbed by blasting in the steamy jungles of Southeast Asia. When construction for an exclusive Club Med-style resort encroaches onto territory that the Kuma natives hold sacred, their alligator god Kroona takes it personally.

Another collaboration between director Sergio Martino and screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi, the creative team behind such seminal Italian gialli as THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH, TORSO and ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK, this paradise-set eco-nightmare boasts lush locations and an extremely high body count.

Also in the cast are distinguished stage and screen actors Mel Ferrer (BLOOD AND ROSES, CITY OF THE WALKING DEAD) and Richard Johnson (THE HAUNTING, ZOMBIE), as well as Italian players Bobby Rhodes (DEMONS, DEMONS 2), Romano Puppo (STREET LAW, THE LAST SHARK) and child actress Sylvia Collatina (THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY, MURDEROCK). Who lives… who dies… only Kroona knows!

NoShame Films is proud to present THE BIG ALLIGATOR RIVER in its original aspect ration, remastered in 16x9 from the original negative, uncut and uncensored for the first time on DVD in America

Customer Reviews:

What A Croc.......2006-09-17

I've always like movies about creatures in the water be it Jaws, Leviathan or even Deep Rising. The idea of a big monster coming out of the water is a bit more acceptable than a creature from outer space. Big alligator/crocodile movies have always been a personal favorite of mine. After all, gators and crocs are the closest things we got to dinosaurs, and they're pretty damn scary. The second reviewer down gives the best play by play of this film. I'd have to recommend this movie more to Italian horror fans looking to check out everything there is rather than the average Lake Placid fan. Gore is minimal however as is skin. The gator looks rather phony(especially in underwater scenes when it attacks boats. It looks like a rubber bath toy being hurled at a toy boat), but that's all part of the fun. Silly looking phony alligators chomping down on folks are much more fun than cgi ones. There's really no reason why someone should like this film, but it has something I can't quite put my finger on that makes it a rather enjoyable 90 minutes. The ending's a hoot coz it brings to mind the scene in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy kills the witch and the Winkies praise her("She's dead! You killed her! Hail to Dorothy! The Wicked Witch is dead!!"). Luckily I found this sucker for a good price(I even had the store hold it for me till next paycheck. I swear they snickered when I asked them to before they filed it away). I'd suggest buying it only if you're swimming in cash or find it decently priced. Hey, this is my 500th review!

let's be honest.......2006-09-01

I so wanted this movie to be great. Or even good. But it's neither. In fact, it borders on being down right bad. Stiff acting, tired premise, laughable special effects. I give it two and a half stars, though, because it did magage to hold my interest.

Immensely entertaining JAWS ripoff / horror trash.......2005-03-19

As with every boxoffice success, Jaws spawned a cycle of ripoffs. For a while it seemed that every tough-guy animal actor who owned a bathing suit had landed an agent. There was Orca: The Killer Whale (1977), Tentacles (1977), Barracuda (1978), Piranha (1978), Alligator (1981), and The Great Alligator, before the cycle petered out with Crocodile (1986) and Evil Below (1989).

Evil Below and The Great Alligator are my favorites. Evil Below is noteworthy for its unusual mix of demonism and undersea horror. A Caribbean treasure hunt thriller with borrowings from Satan's Triangle and Jaws.

But The Great Alligator is better still. Cheesy, shamelessly derivative, stunningly stupid, and enormously enjoyable. In other words, your typical low-budget Italian ripoff.

You already know the plot. You've seen it before. Here it is again: A greedy white businessman (Mel Ferrer) opens an ostentatious hotel in a third world jungle. His timing is awful. Something in the river has begun killing people. The nearby natives think it's the "great god Kuma," who is angry at them for associating with white men.

No, it's not Kuma. You know what it is. The film's title is kind of a giveaway.

Anyway, as you'd expect, Ferrer attempts the usual coverup, lest the tourist trade dry up. The heroes (Barbara Bach and Claudio Cassinelli) suspect something fishy going on, what with all those missing people. Happily, their warnings prove futile. The body count is generous indeed.

One of the fun things about The Great Alligator is that the victims are so boorish or thinly sketched that one is free to enjoy the alligator attacks. The victims are more colorful than in most slasher films, but in the broad strokes of caricature rather than character. And remarkably un-PC caricatures.

Apart from its relative obscurity, I'm guessing one reason the film has avoided PC outrage is because its story is so stupid, it's hard to take seriously. Another reason is that the mostly white tourists are as unflattering as the colored natives. It's difficult deciding who comes off worse.

The tourists are fat, greedy, lustful, stupid, and disrespectful of the environment (drunkenly shooting monkeys from the safety of a boat). Ugly Americans, boorish Germans, eccentric Brits. (One Brit matron expounds upon UFOs, for no particular reason). There's even an obnoxiously preconscious brat to offer inappropriate commentary on the adults' sexcapades.

As for the indigenous tribesmen, they're cruel, savage, primitive, superstitious, fearful, stupid, and ignorant of science (offering Bach as live human sacrifice to their "great god Kuma"). And in case one human sacrifice proves inadequate to appease Kuma, the natives attack the hotel, slaughtering tourists with gusto. Just last night, these tribesmen were happily performing colorful native dances for the tourists, in exchange for such fabulous gifts as pants and alcohol. Now, they resemble the sadistic savages from Make Them Die Slowly, implying that, while you can take the BLANK out of the jungle, you can't take the jungle out of the BLANK. (We'll let Archie Bunker complete those blanks).

The Great Alligator is that rare dialectic, synthesizing opposing stereotypes into a remarkably inane ending. (More on the ending later.)

Perhaps realizing its potentially offensive content, the film explicitly (if artificially) disavows both stereotypes. Ferrer expounds his respect for the environment, and physically stops a paying tourist from shooting monkeys. Meanwhile, Bach offers running commentary throughout the film, lecturing Cassinelli about her respect for the natives.

Bach's character would know. She's an anthropologist working as a hotel guide. It was the only way she could afford to come study the local natives. Cassinelli is the hunky photographer in khaki, hired to take publicity shots for the hotel opening. We know he's eco-sensitive because he chides a gamekeeper who is feeding live animals to crocodiles (as though crocs, uncorrupted by Man, are veggies at heart). Naturally, one suspects Cassinelli would rather do serious photojournalism.

And just as naturally, Cassinelli and Bach become "an item," as they were before in Screamers. (How it is that beautiful lead women are always unattached in these films? I know it's to make them available to the newcomer heroes, but still...)

Director Martino makes admirably creative use of his limited resources. The low-budget alligator only rarely looks like a stiffly floating prop, because (1) Martino's camera constantly pans across the alligator, (2) which is shot largely in closeups, and (3) edited into brief shots. Thus, we rarely see the alligator prop as a whole, but rather only see brief closeups moving across the screen. When we do see its entire body (usually from underwater, so even then it's partly obscured) it's apparent that its legs are still, despite its being propelled across screen.

When the alligator munches upon tourists, its stiff jaws are shot descending on screaming actors, intercut with bloody water. But we don't see flesh pierced. The body count is high, but the gore is almost suggested, as in Psycho (where you saw blood, but no cutting). The Great Alligator is a poor man's gore film.

For that matter, even the natives are a poor man's savage tribe. I'd seen The Great Alligator several times before I realized that I never really knew the story's location. In the opening shots, the jungle and river resemble the Amazon basin, yet the natives look African, not South American. One of them even refers to "your black woman." But the grass-covered boats and props -- more than anything else, they look Polynesian. So are we in the South Pacific? Come to think of it, the "Africans" look a bit like Australian aborigines, albeit tallish aborigines.

The end credits claim the film was shot in ... Sri Lanka.

Okay, so I guess that's what Sri Lanka looks like. Yet, I wonder... The natives, their village, the tour boat -- they look as though the filmmakers grabbed whatever props and extras were available on the cheap. Anything that evoked "third world jungle." A grabbag mishmash, with little regard for consistency or authenticity. I don't know, does "Kuma" even sound Sri Lankan?

About that inane ending (skip the next paragraph to avoid a "spoiler") ...

The natives have slaughtered half the tourists, and nearly killed Bach. Bach and Cassinelli have returned to the resort, huddling amid the surviving tourists. The armed natives emerge from the jungle. Bach, Cassinelli, the tourists -- all gasp! Will the natives finish them off? But then the natives see the dead alligator (killed by Cassinelli, via a method lifted straight out of Jaws, to be lifted again in Evil Below). Some natives prod the dead alligator, then one announces that Kuma is dead! All natives cheer! Bach grins warmly. Cassinelli, the tourists, the brat, everyone, grins warmly. The natives grin warmly. Kuma is dead, so there will be no more slaughter. Everyone is friends again. All previous slaughter is forgotten and forgiven. Happy music swells. End credits roll.

HUH?!

A final note. The Great Alligator features some truly awful day-for-night shots, although that's hard to avoid if you want to shoot a large expanse of river. Even so, it's a dark "nighttime" in some scenes, and practically daylight soon thereafter.

Still, The Great Alligator is immensely enjoyable despite its inanities and budgetary shortcomings. Richard Johnson, in a cameo as a mad Christian missionary, hams it up with some campy dialogue. Bach's wet clothes cling diaphanously to her firm body. And you got a big alligator (at times resembling a flotation device) chomping down boatloads of screaming tourists and natives.

What more can you ask?

Average customer rating:

Boom-erific!
Booms - Sonic, Volcano, Demolition
Excellent video for kids

The Big Boom

Manufacturer: Big Kids Productions
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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The Big Aquarium
The BIG Submarine
The BIG Zoo
Big Space Shuttle
The Big Aircraft Carrier

ASIN: B00074DY34
Release Date: 2004-12-21

Customer Reviews:

Boom-erific!.......2007-04-04

The Little Mammoth video series is very well done. This particular DVD, The Big Boom will delight and EDUCATE curious kids, and their parents. The video starts off with an explanation of sound waves and how our ears work; about frequency and vibration. It is animated and explained in such a way that it will hold a young child's attention.

It begins with the "boom" that volcanoes make. Excellent videography shows children up close what happens when a volcano is active. Next, you discover how a 20-story building is demolished using explosive charges. It is very interesting to see what all it takes to bring a building down safely. They include mention of the type of engineering and other mathematics involved in the careful planning. Finally, you take off into the air as you discover how supersonic jets release a sonic boom. See an SR-71 Blackbird in action.

*** NOTE to Christian Parents: One item that may cause a bit of concern for some viewers is that in this video there is brief mention of the goddess Pele in the discussion of the Volcano. Some parents may find this inappropriate; others may want to use it as an opportunity to point out the different worldviews and belief systems that exist in our diverse world. ***

Booms - Sonic, Volcano, Demolition.......2001-09-15

Provides advanced and detailed information about things that go "boom" in a cohesive presentation with explanations and demonstrations. Enjoyable live footage and child narrator. Great for science classes. Challenges kids to think. Most kids loved it, asking questions and counting along with the explosions. They loved seeing the action of a building demolition in reverse. "It's cool. I liked watching the volcanoes and learning how the lava makes islands." "Too much like school." Best for ages 5 to 8.

Excellent video for kids.......2000-12-31

I bought this video for my 3 1/2 yr old nephew because he was very interested in hot lava and volcanoes. Its a very well made video and easy for kids to understand. My nephew loved it and wanted to watch it again right away. I think it would be good for a wide age range of kids (3-12?).

Average customer rating:

Big Boi's Boom Boom Room
Starring: Big Boi
Manufacturer: Arista
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Rap & Hip-Hop | Styles | Music

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The Big Boom
Starring: Francesca D'Aloja , Angela Finocchiaro , Alessandro Haber , Maria Monti , and Natale Tulli
Director: Marco Risi
Manufacturer: Terra
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

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ASIN: B0007UDCTY

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