The Alligator People
Year: 1959
Director: Roy Del Ruth
Written by: Orville H. Hampton
Threat: Mad Scientist
Weapon of Choice: Electricity
Based upon: none
IMDb page: 
The Alligator PeopleYear: 1959 Director: Roy Del Ruth Written by: Orville H. Hampton Threat: Mad Scientist Weapon of Choice: Electricity Based upon: none IMDb page: |
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Other movies in this series:
None
The tyranist's thoughts
There were a lot of movies in the '50s that walked the fine line between Science Fiction and
Horror. In some ways, the two weren't even as distinct as they are today. Most Science
Fiction in film was a bleak vision of the future or the consequences of the present. I didn't
expect any different from The Alligator People and it didn't disappoint.
Told all in flashback, a woman is abadoned on her wedding night. She dedicates all her time
to finding her husband. Eventually, she tracks him to a backwoods house in the middle of a
swamp.
This is pretty typical for the '50s both in budget and plot-wise. The writing isn't spectacular,
but the science is better than average. It's always fun to see Lon Chaney Jr. and especially
nice to see him take a turn as a true bad guy. While the cast was pretty likeable, there just
wasn't enough substance to the movie to make us care about them.
If pressed I'd say that this was worth a watch, but my inclination is to point out that it isn't
much better or much worse than the majority of the fare pumped out by the studios in
the '50s. As Rish is fond of saying, the '50s were the worst of times for film. Perhaps in
light of that, mediocrity isn't really so bad.
Posted: October 20, 2004
Total Skulls: 4
| Sequel | ||
| Sequel setup | ||
| Rips off earlier film | ||
| Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie | ||
| Future celebrity appears | ||
| Former celebrity appears | ||
| Bad title | ||
| Bad premise | ||
| Bad acting | ||
| Bad dialogue | ||
| Bad execution | ||
| MTV Editing | ||
| OTS | ||
| Girl unnecessarily gets naked | ||
| Wanton sex | ||
| Death associated with sex | ||
| Unfulfilled promise of nudity | ||
| Characters forget about threat | ||
| Secluded location |  |
|
| Power is cut | ||
| Phone lines are cut | ||
| Someone investigates a strange noise | |
|
| Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door | ||
| Camera is the killer | ||
| Victims cower in front of a window/door | ||
| Victim locks self in with killer | ||
| Victim running from killer inexplicably falls | ||
| Toilet stall scene | ||
| Shower/bath scene | ||
| Car stalls or won't start | ||
| Cat jumps out | ||
| Fake scare | ||
| Laughable scare | ||
| Stupid discovery of corpse | ||
| Dream sequence | ||
| Hallucination/Vision | ||
| No one believes only witness | ||
| Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth | ||
| Warning goes unheeded | ||
| Music detracts from scene | ||
| Death in first five minutes | ||
| x years before/later | ||
| Flashback sequence | |
|
| Dark and stormy night | |
|
| Killer doesn't stay dead | ||
| Killer wears a mask | ||
| Killer is in closet | ||
| Killer is in car with victim | ||
| Villain is more sympathetic than heroes | ||
| Unscary villain/monster | ||
| Beheading | ||
| Blood fountain | ||
| Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc. | ||
| Poor death effect | ||
| Excessive gore | ||
| No one dies at all | ||
| Virgin survives | ||
| Geek/Nerd survives | ||
| Little kid lamely survives | ||
| Dog/Pet miraculously survives | ||
| Unresolved subplots | ||
| "It was all a dream" ending | ||
| Unbelievably happy ending | ||
| Unbelievably crappy ending | ||
| What the hell? |