Croc!

For years, the Hampshire Freshwater Crocodile (Crocodylus hampshirius) was widely hunted for its valuable skin, which was used in the UK fashion industry for high-end accessories such as designer handbags, belts and watch straps. A ban on the trapping and killing of the endangered animal was introduced in 1990 to try and prevent total extinction, but the last reported sighting of the reptile in the wild was in 1992 and, with captive breeding programs proving unsuccessful, it is now believed to have gone the way of the dodo.

All of the above is a load of crock.

There are no crocodiles in Hampshire. Haven't been any since prehistoric times. But that hasn't stopped writer/director Paul W. Franklin from setting his killer croc movie in my home county, where the most dangerous wild animal is a badger (seriously, those things are mean-tempered). Putting facts to one side for the moment, a giant man-eating crocodile on the loose in the South-East of England could have been a lot of trashy fun. But on this occasion, it isn't.

Franklin places his wholly unconvincing CGI crocodile amongst a group of people attending a wedding at the only venue in the whole of England without wi-fi or a landline; this leaves a handful of survivors trapped in the main building with no means of escape. No explanation is ever given for the existence of a large man-eating crocodile in Hampshire (seriously, not even the old 'pet flushed down the toilet' or 'escaped zoo animal' excuse) or for why it has never been sighted. None of the unlikeable characters display any level of intelligence or ability to stay on their feet when chased by the reptile, and the plot is a tired collection of well-worn cliches, predictable to the very end.

Franklin resorts to giving viewers not one but two gratuitous sex scenes, which hit the right trashy notes, but they come early in the film, and everything that follows is tough to endure thanks to the diabolical script, laughable acting (was the guy who played the reverend actually an actor or a relation of Franklin?), and extremely weak special effects.

Well, I can't say that I had actually heard anything about this 2022 movie titled "Croc!" (aka "Crocodile Vengeance") from writer and director Paul W. Franklin, nor seen any trailer or as much as heard a single word. But the movie's cover seemed fairly interesting enough to actually make me want to give the movie a gander. However, I have to admit that I wasn't harboring any expectations, because a lot of these monstrous creature - or killer animals - features tends to be dubious movies at best.

Writer and director Paul W. Franklin managed to deliver a very, very generic creature feature with "Croc!", and even for a movie of this genre then "Croc!" was just bland and amazingly generic. Pretty simplistic storyline really, which worked out well enough, but the movie just felt shallow and sort of pointless really, as "Croc!" didn't offer anything that haven't already been seen and done in other crocodile-based movies.

The acting in "Croc!" was pretty wooden and rigid for the most parts, making the performances on the screen seem sluggish and sort of amateurish. And that wasn't exactly helping to promote "Croc!"

And writer and director Paul W. Franklin had a little bit too much focus on lewd sex scenes, which absolutely meant nothing to the storyline or script, nor helped promote the narrative in any manner. It just felt pointless and ridiculous, and it was something that was very unnecessary to include in the movie.

Now, with "Croc!" being a monstrous creature feature, then of course having believable crocodiles in the movie would be a must. Right? Right! Well, guess what? They didn't have believable crocodiles in the movie, not even believable CGI animated crocodiles. Nay. What they did have, however, was rather poorly animated CGI crocodiles that lacked anything to make them realistic or believable. The way they moved seemed so wrong, and it felt like certainly scenes of the crocodile opening its maw and flapping its tongue around was copied and pasted into the movie at various points throughout the 84 minutes that "Croc!" ran for.

Yeah, "Croc!" was not an impressive foray into the monstrous creature feature. It was a slow paced and sluggish movie which came without notice and will disappear into the mists of oblivion without notice.

My rating of "Croc!" lands on a generous two out of ten stars.

Holy cow, this was a really bad movie. Unfortunately it wasn't good-bad. It was just bad. Real bad.

The acting is atrocious -- especailly the red head in the beginning who also does soft core porn on a site called WANKITNOW. Bad.

The special effects might have been good 20 years ago, but today they look unfinished. The croc looks plastic and besides what is he doing in England?

And that brings us to the story -- it's ridiculous. The most unfortunate thing is it's not humorous in the slightest. So by watching it, you lose 90 minute of your life that you will never get back.

Take my word for it, you will want to avoid this movie at all costs.

I just watched 'CROC!', sort of. It was hard to turn off. I wanted to, but my curiosity to see how stupid this movie could get got the best of me. I knew I was in for a treat, when, in the first croc scene, it leapt (yes, leapt) on top of a man... belly first. I had to back it up and watch it again to make sure that's what happened.

This movie was so dumb, honest to God, it wouldn't have surprised me if they showed Crocs opening doors to get to people.

This movie tries SO hard to be serious, which is what makes it so funny.

I'd recommend not to watching, but I don't want to deprive you of a good belly laugh!

I am so sorry, but this movie is just terrible. I mean the CGI is childish, at best, the acting is basic and let's talk about some of the useless scenes... I apologise for the categorisation but is seems like a awfully made horror soft-po*n movie! What the heck did I just watch?!

I normally tend to watch movie until the end even if they are not particularly good because sometimes they get slightly better and you are curious about how it ends, but with this one I just couldn't!

Overall, terrible movie! If you are curious, watch it, but if you have no time to waste DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME! Not a horror movie, I bet that even students could do a better job than this!