Main cast: Michael Bonini (Sam), Maddie Lane (Hope), Ben VanderMey (Chad), Rebecca Stoughton (Sarah), Sarah Buchanan (Paisley), Cooper Drippe (Pearce), and Lee Fealy (Jim)
Director: Danny Draven
As a movie from el cheapo horror movie legend Charles Band’s Full Moon Features, Bad CGI Gator is never going to look like a million dollar production. Thus, one way to go about it is to be openly self aware and even mocking about how cheap it is, and turn the whole thing into a satirical farce. That will work out just fine… right?
The story is simple. Six idiots decide to go spend their Spring Break at a cabin by a lake. Okay, four of them are vapid social media-addicted bimbos and meatheads obsessed with beer and boobies, while Sam is a whiny loser mocked by the others and Hope is the edgy surly one that is, like, totally above these losers.
I’m not sure how the latter two end up with this bunch. Sure, Hope is meathead Chad’s step-sister, but that doesn’t mean she has to tag along with the rest to the cabin, right? Then again, I suppose someone needs to survive by the end of this movie, and it sure won’t be those vapid bimbos and meatheads!
Incidentally, the “loser” Sam is the hottest guy among the bunch. He has the cake in the back and the biggest package in the front of those shorts.
Anyway, I have to endure 20 minutes of these losers stinking up the screen before they decide to toss their laptops into the lake as some kind of ritual to show that, like, they are so totally over education and they are now going to embrace stupidity for the rest of their lives.
For this folly, the laptops somehow electrocutes a baby-sized CGI gator in the lake, transforming it into a huge and very hungry monster-sized version—the perfect hero to rid the human gene pool of these defective specimens.
Okay, I admit it, the bad CGI gator is too adorable for words. It can walk on air, stand on its hind legs, growl like a big dog, do kung-fu, and even knock on the door like a human!
It also helps that the human characters are more CGI than the gator in terms of behavior. I have to laugh when Sarah sees her boyfriend Chad escorting their injured friendly Paisley—”I totally forgot about her!” only to scream “Oh, put her back! Ew!” when she spots Paisley’s gnawed off lower leg.
Will I recommend this crap? Well, only to people that have time to kill and don’t mind puerile and dumb cartoon humor that is hit or miss. I do end up laughing quite a bit, because this movie is often so absurd and stupid that I can’t help but to be amused.
The movie shouldn’t work, at least on paper, but perhaps it’s lucky and I happen to be in one of those moods that leave me easily entertained, but either way, this one is a cute way to waste some time and kill some brain cells.
