The Flood
Directed by Brandon Slagle
Written by Chad Law and Josh Ridgway
Starring Nicky Whelan, Casper Van Dien, Louis Mandylor
Runtime: 1 hour, 33 minutes
Available in select theaters, on-demand, and digitally on July 14th

by Joe Carlough, Staff Writer

Timing is everything, isn’t it? It can spell a musician’s lucky break, if they’re fortunate enough to sync up with the right people watching. It can put you on track to find that crisp, ten dollar bill stuck in the dunes at the beach before someone else does. But time answers to no master, no good nor evil, and it’s not always so benevolent. You can, for instance, find yourself at the wrong time in the wrong place. You could be an inmate on a prison bus driving through a Louisiana hurricane, ending up diverting course to a sheriff’s office infested with giant, man-eating alligators. Timing is funny in that way. 

If you’re wondering why I’ve chosen such an incredibly specific instance of bad timing, it’s because that’s the plot of The Flood, the new alligator thriller from Saban Films. A fun and exciting dip in the pool, The Flood follows a bus full of inmates being driven between prisons during a hurricane. As the weather worsens, the guards decide to divert course to a local police station, the one with “that pretty sheriff,” to sit out the storm and keep the inmates safely locked up. What they’re not expecting is a group of armed ex-military guys showing up to break out one of the inmates. And what no one is expecting is for the storm to usher in a congregation of alligators who begin to navigate the slowly flooding station. And yes, before you go to look it up, that’s what a group of alligators is called. A congregation.

The Flood is high on fun and exciting alligator attacks, low on quality acting and dialogue–but that’s not necessarily to its detriment, it sort of adds to the fun of watching. There were certainly moments when the story almost felt like it was getting in the way of my enjoyment of the movie: the budding camaraderie vs. the unease between good-guy and bad-guy represents the bulk of the low points of the movie, culminating in an awful fight scene between the sheriff and inmates as tensions peak. Luckily, there was an abundance of alligator attacks, and the CGI used to create the gators was passable and pretty smooth. Like any good monster movie, we got to see some limbs torn off and floating around. There were moments when I wondered if the director was having a bit of fun reveling in the lo-fi of the movie himself: during a shootout between the cops and the bad guys, bullets whizzed by like lasers, reminiscent of remastered scenes from the original Star Wars trilogy. 

All in all, The Flood is a lot of fun even if I didn’t walk away from it with my socks knocked off. It’s director Brandon Slagle’s strongest showing yet, and he’s only getting better, so I’ll look forward to what he comes up with next!