Shawn's Rogue Review

2008 Movie #78 - Rogue

I’m going to come right out and say it, I’m a huge sucker for any movie where a huge alligator or crocodile comes on the scene and fucks with everyone’s shit. I may have said that already in my Lake Placid 2 review but even I don’t ever want to read that review again so I guess we’ll never know for sure. Unfortunately my thirst for this kind of movie is very rarely quenched because not only are they rare, but 99% of the time they’re fucking terrible. Sure I have a soft spot for the first Lake Placid and even Primeval had it’s moments despite some terrible marketing. There’s an old one from the 70’s or 80’s that was also pretty damn entertaining. Other than that though, the pickings are very very slim. So what the hell is a blood hungry crocodile fan to do? Well I now have the answer, watch the movie Rogue.

This one was supposed to come out early last year but was delayed, presumably because of the release of Primeval around the same time. That’s really too bad because this movie is so much better in just about every way imaginable. Technically I think this would actually be a 2007 movie but by this point in the adventure we’ve pretty much thrown rules out the window so who cares.

The first thing to note about this movie is that it avoids being cheesy. I expected it to be pretty stupid but this is actually a pretty well made little horror movie. There are some genuinely suspenseful sequences here and for the most part the tension never lets up for at least the middle part of the movie. It takes a little while to get going in the start but this is because it actually tries to get you to care for its characters, which isn’t completely successful but they certainly do a much better job than most other movies like this.

For the most part the crocodile stays offscreen, which is pretty effective for the most part. I’m guessing this was done for both suspense reasons and to hide the special effects, which works for me because nothing takes you out of the movie faster than awful special effects *looks at Lake Placid 2, then runs at it and kicks it in the throat for being so stupid*. You do see the creature in plain view eventually but the special effects are just decent enough to not ruin things.

This is a great example of a movie being better than it has any right to be. It’s nothing groundbreaking but it does what it does well, and for a killer crocodile movie that’s very rare. Keep ‘em coming Hollywood!

*** ½ /5