Some bizarrely motivated real estate jackasses decide it’s a great idea to build a swanky resort in the middle of the African jungle. The local jungle god is pretty upset that his precious habitat is being encroached upon and proceeds to take the form of a big ass alligator to eat the shit out every opportunistic money man and hapless, empty-headed tourist he can find. This alligator isn’t too picky though and also eats a bunch of the local natives. These natives then rightly blame the white man for causing this misfortune that has besieged them and wages war on the tourists. Will anyone survive this jungle death trap?

If you’ve ever dipped your toe into the eurocult pond more than once or twice (and if you’re here, chance are you have), then it’s an almost certainty that you’ve watch more than one Sergio Martino film in your lifetime. While known primarily for his excellent giallo films like The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, Torso, All the Colors of the Dark and Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (a personal favorite of mine), like most Italian genre filmmakers, he’s made all sorts of films. From spaghetti westerns (Manaja) to poliziotteschi (The Violent Professionals) and from post nuke flicks (2019: After the Fall of New York) to whatever the hell American Rickshaw is, Martino is not afraid to hop onto whatever gravy train is proving to be popular that particular week. This is why it isn’t surprising to find that Martino dove in head first into the Jaws ripoff sub-genre that was prevalent in the late ’70s (Orca, Tintorera Killer Shark, Devilfish, Killer Fish, Piranha, etc.). What sets The Great Alligator apart from many of these other copycats though is that it is actually a hybrid of Jaws ripoff and jungle exploitation movie, another sub-genre that was common at time (in fact Martino had directed his own entry in that particular sub-genre with Mountain of the Cannibal God a year previous). Wedging the hapless tourists in between a big ass alligator jungle god and a group of pissed off, blood-thirsty natives really helps the film keep up the pace and makes it consistently engaging. Where the movie does come off a bit silly is in the special effects department. The alligator miniature work in particular is notorious for how laughably stiff it is in certain shots (which the crew readily admits problems with in one of the extras). But in a way, that just adds to the charm in the same way that Antonio Margheriti’s miniatures in his sci-fi films are (granted, Margheriti’s miniatures are much more accomplished that what we get here). After all, not every film needs to be a masterpiece. Sometimes just being well-paced and fun is enough. And on that count, The Great Alligator delivers.

Severin has delivered The Great Alligator in a new 4K scan of the original camera negative, and to be honest, it’s not the best transfer out there. It’s perfectly adequate but has quite a few scratches and blemishes with the grain overwhelming the image at times. This all seems to be inherent in the source though. The actual scan itself appears to maintain a nice bitrate and avoid compression artifacts. The audio is provided in both English and Italian 2.0 dubs and both sound solid and free of distortion. Severin has added a nice slab of interview-based extras including interviews with Sergio Martino himself, actress Silvia Collatina, cameraman Claudio Morabito, production designer Antonello Geleng, underwater cameraman Gianlorenzo Battaglia (an interesting perspective we rarely get in extras) and then the aforementioned interview with Geleng, cinematographer Giancarlo Ferrando and special effects supervisor Paolo Ricci (accompanied by the infamous, janky miniature model). As usual, these are all useful for digging into the production of the film, and my particular favorite among them was the interview on the admittedly lackluster special effects. Also included is a visual essay by author Lee Gambin called Paradise House: Christianity and the Natural World in The Great Alligator. It attempts to intersect The Great Alligator with Christian theology and racial identity. Odd inclusion to say the least but has some interesting ideas stirring around in there. Plus we have a featurette showing the original production designs (some of which look much cooler than anything that ended up in the film) and a trailer.

The Great Alligator isn’t a masterpiece of cinema, but Martino doesn’t pretend that it is. In his interview he talks about how some consider him a trash director, but he is supplying a real demand for these kinds of “lesser” films. The masses have spoken, and The Great Alligator is a good time. Life’s hard enough, and sometimes a good time is all you need.