It was somewhere around the mid-1990s when animal horror came back into style. Not since the first cinema cycles of ecological and natural horror, specifically the ’50s through the ‘70s, had there been such a stampede of creature-caused carnage. Jurassic Park was a key influence in this new wave of faunal frights, however, Anaconda and Lake Placid are better blueprints for what all came next. The DNA of those two films can be sensed in the more modestly made Crocodile (2000), which stands out from the pack on account of its director, Tobe Hooper. 

As Hooper fans know, Crocodile was not the first work of his to have a major croc component; Eaten Alive showed the guests of the Starlight Hotel becoming meals for the proprietor’s scaly pet. Observant viewers may wonder if these two Hooper horrors are connected, seeing as they have parallels, such as man-eating reptiles and deranged hoteliers. A hixploitation element is also present — and random — in Crocodile, albeit minimally. Whereas in Eaten Alive, the story is, at least atmospherically, Southern fried. So although the films are self-contained, there is occasional overlap on the surface.

Only one species of crocodile is endemic to the U.S., but Hooper’s film is neither set in Florida nor does it star an American crocodile. The gargantuan here is really a Nile specimen, she resides somewhere in California, and she is the centerpiece of Crocodile’s in-universe folklore. For sure, young people fall prey to a bloodthirsty killer here, yet this film feels the most like a traditional teen slasher when, early on, the characters sit around a campfire and soak up a story about the legendary “Flat Dog.”

Image: Caitlin Martin and Mark McLachlan’s characters scold Chris Solari and Greg Wayne’s characters.

After the story’s collegiate characters arrive at their Spring Break destination, Crocodile provides an always genre-approved infodump about the antagonist in store. As the storyteller among these eight co-eds explains, an early 20th-century hotel owner named Harlan Clemens turned his African import into a worshipped idol. This led to a kind of cult following before the townsfolk grew tired of Clemens’ “un-Christian” ways. The shrine to Flat Dog, along with her freshly laid eggs, was destroyed, and now she haunts Lake Sobek. This backstory of an abandoned, crocodilian goddess would have made for a more interesting film, but alas, that is not what Hooper made.

The only curvature of Crocodile lies in the film’s namesake. Indeed, the story is straightforward, and the maternal menace is often more serpentine and agile than nature ever intended. However, the script — the work of Boaz Davidson and Michael D. Weiss, then partners Adam Gierasch and Jace Anderson — brought out a sympathetic quality in Flat Dog. That aspect, the central conceit of the story, echoes various past animal horror films; the dangerous creature is acting on human emotions and ethics. And if any director knows how to steer a murderous frenzy and let anguish and rage run rampant, it would be Hooper.

Devastated by industrial capitalism, the family in Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) was left to fend for itself. On a different but similar wavelength, Flat Dog was forced to live in a world not of her own, then persevere in that increasingly grim environment where hers and her family’s survival demanded drastic measures. Following that train of thought, the eponymous star of Crocodile is also something of a victim herself. The very waters she escaped to, following the downfall of her sanctum, have become gradually unsafe, especially around tourist seasons. Not only are there the locals who endanger her offspring, there are now heedless vacationers whose first response to seeing a nest of eggs is to violate them. These visiting trespassers manhandle and pilfer the eggs, and their pet dog consumes the rest. Flat Dog’s response is, understandably, merciless.

Image: Flat Dog finds the guilty party.

While the human characters in other natural horror films have been known to just be in the wrong place at the wrong time, the ones in Crocodile are directly paying for their lapse in judgment. Not everyone among this group is guilty of a crime against nature, but they are guilty by association — and that is plenty of reason for Flat Dog to mete out swift, godlike punishment. Other similar films find animals fighting back after an age of maltreatment or contamination, or they are fed up with the invasion and man-made deterioration of their territory. At that point, these films are contradicting the notion of natural because they have created a sort of “supernature” where perceived threats are dealt with accordingly as well as abnormally. Crocodile is not so eco-conscious, given how Flat Dog is really exacting her own revenge as opposed to being Mother Nature’s enforcer.

With Crocodile anthropomorphizing Flat Dog, namely giving her the drive to stalk and kill for her family, the film removes a good deal of humanness from the actual human characters. The most rational of the lot, Brady (Mark McLachlan) and girlfriend Claire (Caitlin Martin), are simply charged with complicity, but their friends — primarily doofus Duncan (Chris Solari) and the other men — are responsible for the ensuing carnage. Funnily enough, the crocodile is the most compassionate character here, based on the film’s ending. Duncan and his fellow knaves, on the other hand, are unkind without delay and apologies. The staggering lack of inhibitions is not exclusive to the guys either; Brady’s drunken one-night stand, Sunny, (Sommer Knight), wantonly spills the beans to Claire.

So after spending enough — too much — time with the film’s deathbound, it is reasonable to believe there was intention in designing Duncan and his crew to be insufferable. Despite producer Frank DeMartini insisting that audiences would “really care about these people,” sympathy is close to inconceivable. Having said that, there was a burgeoning tendency in horror back then, particularly any film with a growing body count, to allow vexing and hollow characters to proliferate on screen, provided that their fatalities were over the top, vicious and gratifying to watch. Crocodile was, in that way, ahead of its time.

Image: Claire returns Flat Dog’s egg.

The main draw of a film like Crocodile is its titular star. Unfortunately, Flat Dog is only a marginal success, as far as special effects go. KNB EFX Group, which was founded by Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger, is responsible for the practical crocodile. Partly using equipment left over from Eraser — its reptile house set-piece — KNB crafted four variations of the Lake Sobek monster, including an inspiring animatronic head for “eating” scenes. These impressive models were used for swimming or close-ups, but full-body shots were, regrettably, done with Flat Earth Productions’ CGI. If the choice was to either have a chintzy digital croc or no wide shots at all, then informed viewers surely would have accepted just KNB’s maw and tail.

The hurdles when watching this film are higher than desired, yet on occasion, it overcomes itself and entertains. The visit to the ‘gator farm and the interactions between cops and bumpkins ooze classic Hooper, and a whit of the night sequences, such as the quarrelsome trek through the woods and the store slaughter, are genuinely fun.

Without delivering any more blows to its already soft and bruised underbelly, Crocodile is a film whose virtues, few as they may be, go unnoticed. Yes, it was obvious that Tobe Hooper was not the same director he once was — also being mindful of the fact that his career highs are now horror benchmarks — however, he still managed to put his signature on an otherwise by-the-numbers production. That Hooper stamp is apparent where least expected but also much appreciated whenever wading through the rest of this silly film.

Horror contemplates in great detail how young people handle inordinate situations and all of life’s unexpected challenges. While the genre forces characters of every age to face their fears, it is especially interested in how youths might fare in life-or-death scenarios.

The column Young Blood is dedicated to horror stories for and about teenagers, as well as other young folks on the brink of terror.

Image: The poster for Crocodile.