Rating: 2.5/5
Hooptober 3.0 | 31/31 | Tobe Hooper
Cheap pop punk stabs our ears as we join Brady and Duncan discussing the one food they’d eat for the rest of their life. Brady says pizza — the correct choice — while Duncan says yams. What a rascal!
Following behind them are the rest of their crew on a boat trip on Lake Sobek over spring break. Sobek, as in the Egyptian god with a crocodile head. Sunny moons the boys, showing off her lower back tattoo. It’s a little blurry, but it looks like it says “dream quick attack” in Chinese.
A reckless life is the only one worth living, my friend
Around the campfire that night, Kit tells a story about the creature of Lake Sobek. A hotel owner kept a crocodile named Flat Dog (is this a reference to Hooper’s other crocodile movie, Eaten Alive?). The hotel owner believed Flat Dog was an avatar of Subek, creating a cult to worship it. The town ran the hotel owner out and burned down the hotel.
The following day, Sunny’s scraggly little dog, Princess, leads the boys to a nest of eggs. The boys fuck around, stealing and breaking eggs. One of them sneaks off and hides an egg in his bag. Flat Dog watches and waits for her chance to enact her revenge. When the boat comes unmoored overnight, the kids find themselves 30 miles from help and ripe for the chomping.
Hooper hoped to return to form with a movie about teenagers messing around in matters beyond their comprehension. The mythical background to the croc hints at that, but the rest of the film is standard “killer animal” fodder.
We also spend so much time with relationship drama! I guess it’s supposed to get us invested in these fratty boys and nondescript girls. Or maybe it’s to get us hating them more. No one gives outstanding performances, but Caitlin Martin is a cut above her costars. It probably helps that her character has more than one dimension.
The kills are okay. A couple are really funny and cartoony. One bro bends down on a small dock to puke in the water. Flat Dog takes a single bite, eating the guy and taking out a croc-shaped hole in the dock.
What has helped Hooper’s late career films stand out is their weirdness. The Mangler, Toolbox Murders, and Mortuary aren’t outstanding, but they’re nutty as hell. This movie hints at a similar vibe, especially with the greasy swamp dudes we meet later in the film. Also, the movie builds some legitimate tension and ups the stakes in amusing ways. It’s just also silly and fizzles out.