Well, what can I say? It could have been so good…
The story follows Haley, a competition swimmer, who ignores the hurricane warnings and goes to find her father, thanks to a worried phone call from her sister.
Despite being close when Haley was young – her dad being her swim coach – a rift has grown between them and now they barely speak. Dave, Haley’s dad, lives close to an alligator farm in Florida and, on finding his condo empty except for his dog Sugar, Haley goes to the former family home, which is supposed to have been sold following her parents’ divorce.
Haley finds Dave seriously injured in the cellar of the house and, as she drags him to safety, she soon meets the perpetrator of his injuries – an alligator. As to how it got into the cellar, well, that’s due to the river breaking its banks and bringing it through the conveniently alligator-sized storm drain/overflow which leads to/from the cellar (or so it appears). As to how the alligator got into the river (assuming it isn’t wild), well, that would be courtesy of the alligator farm being compromised by the hurricane.
So far so good.
Realising she’s dropped her phone, Haley decides to leave her severely wounded father and their ‘safe for now’ hiding place, to go and get it and call for help. Given phones don’t work at the best of times, I fail to see how it would in a hurricane!
This is when she discovers there are two alligators, one of which gets hold of her arm and twists it around, as alligators do, in an attempt to rip it off. Now badly wounded, she manages to drag herself into another hiding place.
Water is pouring into the cellar, so the pair have no choice but to find a way out. Despite both characters having critical and debilitating injuries, they manage to escape the cellar, but as to escaping the alligators, the storm has other ideas.
I’ll not tell you anymore, in case you wish to view it for yourselves.
The film lost all its credibility for me when the pair were able to ‘suddenly’ start moving freely, while both having sustained major injuries. This is not possible. No amount of adrenaline could anaesthetise those injuries!
And then there was the ending… oh dear…
A comparison to Jaws? I think not!