And the results are really dull. The plot has been indifferently slung together. The acting is unconvincing. And the direction fails to generate any worthwhile suspense – hardly anything happens throughout. And to add insult it is all run over by typically bad Italian dubbing – in many scenes the dubbing fails to match what the actor’s are mouthing in closeup. The special effects work is merely adequate – rather amusing is the titular beast which mostly appears to be six to eight feet long but can range anywhere up to forty feet in length – in one classic scene it manages to go from its standard six feet in length to open its jaws and somehow enclose a twenty-foot tall cabin cruiser. Like any Italian film it has a fairly high gore quotient and at least these effects are quite convincing. The most memorable moment is the climax which features Anthony Crenna taking on the crocodile, shoving an outboard motor down its throat, causing it to spray gore everywhere and then for some reason to blow up. The film features the recurrent theme in Italian exploitation of nature taking revenge for civilization’s exploitation of the wild. The film also has the interesting footnote of being the first Jaws clone where the heroes are environmentalists whose first reaction is to regard the monster as an endangered species and try to stop it from being killed.

The sequel was Killer Crocodile 2 (1990).