The Great Alligator is a dreary affair, conducted without much interest on the part of those involved. It was directed by Sergio Martino, an exploitation veteran who has made cheap copies of all the abovementioned films as well as several other Jaws clones including Isle of the Fishmen/Screamers (1981) and Devilfish/Devouring Waves/Monster Shark/Red Ocean (1984). (See below for Sergio Martino’s other genre films). Despite eight listed screenwriters, the plot comes strictly by the numbers and is rendered even more comatose by the inflectionless dubbing into English. It goes exactly where Jaws has gone before – there is the greedy mayor/hotel developer who ignores the menace until the shark/alligator starts eating the guests, the intrepid hero who fights to have the truth heard and so on. The film does manage to get in one uniquely Italian theme – in having the developer readily exploiting the natives as well. (Italian exploitation cinema, particularly their cannibal films, has a recurrent theme of nature in the raw taking symbolic revenge for colonial exploitation). It takes a long time to get to the main action but even then things happen at a snail’s pace. The alligator effects are passably convincing for the brief, almost subliminal shots we are allowed of it.

Sergio Martino’s other genre films include:- the giallo Blade of the Ripper (1971), They’re Coming to Get You (1972) about Satanists, the giallo Torso/The Body Bears Traces of Carnal Violence (1973), the cannibal film Slave of the Cannibal God/Prisoner of the Cannibal God (1978), Isle of the Fishmen/Screamers (1981), the occult film Murder in the Etruscan Cemetary (1982), the post-holocaust film 2019: After the Fall of New York (1985) and the giallo Mozart is a Murderer (1999), as well as wrote Devilfish/Devouring Waves/Monster Shark/Red Ocean (1984) and the killer cyborg film Hands of Steel (1986).