‘The Flood’: Cops, Criminals And Carnivores In A Bloody Good Battle

 In one respect, film critics are no different from anyone else. We all have individual hangups, personal preferences, and guilty pleasures. Some hate westerns, others love musicals, but we all have our own weaknesses. I have two: Nazis and crocodiles. Give me a Holocaust drama where you can tell the good guys from the bad guys because the good guys are the victims you root for and the bad guys wear swastikas. I like it even better when you can’t tell the difference. His fans hated it, but I even liked it when the centerpiece Nazi was played by Tom Cruise in a thing called Valkyrie. As for  crocodiles, the reptilian versions of Nazis, my fascination never wanes any time they slither into the water in an endless search for lunch, especially when Tarzan is on the menu.   

There are no Nazis in a thriller called The Flood. No actual crocodiles, either, but alligators, their evil cousins with shorter snouts, are in full supply. A storm rages in Louisiana, sending an army of swamp gators into a frenzy. It’s the worst disaster since the region was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, and director Brandon Slagle works overtime to get it on film with lip-licking gore. Enter a bus carrying a gang of five vicious criminals locked up for the usual crimes—armed robbery, murder, cop killing—en route to a new jail, guarded by a lady sheriff and her deputies, all of them at the mercy of predatory reptiles with no qualms about easily upstaging a cast of low-budget unknowns. Since the monsters look like the real deal instead of computer generated movie constructs, the terror seems unbearably genuine and the dangers doubly believable.

Roads are washed out, making escape impossible, as well as the convicts’ rescue plans. It’s pretty scary, replete with wild weather, “gotcha!” moments, special effects, and constant outbreaks of brutal violence from both animals and humans alike. Action is intercut with grim closeups of the gators feasting on human flesh, leavened by down-home Southern colloquialisms. Example: “After Hurricane Ida, my sister’s husband got eaten right in front of us on the front lawn. It was two weeks before they found what was left of him inside of a five-hundred-pound gator’s belly. I been tanglin’ with ‘em since I was knee high to a crawfish.” The dialogue, to a Louisiana expatriate like me, is crude but familiar.

With the predators devouring their victims one by one, the cops and the crooks are forced to join forces in order to survive. It all leads up to the big finale, when all of the jaw-snapping reptiles converge on everyone who is still alive at the same time. Is The Flood a good movie? Of course not. But it kept my pulse throbbing, which is more than I can say about most of the big-budget fiascos I’ve seen lately. It’s not dull, you won’t dare doze, and there’s something to be said about a cast of bloodthirsty carnivores in the middle of an actor’s strike.

Observer Reviews are regular assessments of new and noteworthy cinema.