Rogue

Rogue (2007): I had avoided renting this ‘big croc’ movie because I had seen so many like it before, but others gave it good reviews and I decided to invest an hour or two with yet another large reptile. What I found was a very well done big critter movie with some of the most beautiful scenery ever seen in a horror movie. The story takes place in northern Australia in a tour boat going up a tidal river in the outback filled with large saltwater crocodiles. The idyllic trip up the river shows incredibly beautiful scenery with beautiful background music (called ‘River Suite’) that contrasts sharply with what lurks in the muck below. While the movie has some standard ‘big thing’ qualities to it, the cast does well and is headed by Aussie ingénue Radha Mitchell, veteran of ‘Pitch Black’ and ‘Surrogates’. Cast mortality is naturally quite high and Mr. Salty seems to have a large appetite and is just a mite territorial to boot. The story is based on a true incident that occurred back in the 70’s when one of these monsters actually attacked a boat by biting the outboard, twisting the boat over and sinking it. Tension runs high as the survivors have to figure out how to stay alive until help arrives and this doesn’t turn out to be a simple thing to do. Overall, the movie is a better than average large killer reptile tale of terror. The movie is unrated but should bite off an R for: continuous fly swatting, partially chewed boat, partially chewed Radha, fully chewed tourists, serious need for a bigger boat, unsuccessful rope climbing, sinking islands, croc on a stick, and for the fate of the beer swilling locals who eventually try to help.