Movie Review: THE FLOOD

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: July 14th, 2023 / 09:39 AM

THE FLOOD movie poster | ©2023 Lionsgate / Saban Films

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Casper Van Dien, Nicky Whelan, Louis Mandylor, Devanny Pinn, Ryan Francis, Eoin O’Brien, Randall J. Bacon, Randy Wayne
Writers: Chad Law, Josh Ridgway
Director: Brandon Slagle
Distributor: Lionsgate/Saban Films
Release Date: July 14, 2023

THE FLOOD is essentially ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 meets CRAWL

Should readers be unfamiliar with the first reference, ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, was originally written and directed in 1976 by John Carpenter, then remade in 2005, with Jean-François Richet directing a screenplay by James DeMonaco. While the motivations differ, both films deal with an attack on an understaffed, rundown police station by a vicious gang.

For those who haven’t heard of CRAWL, it’s about alligators swimming all over a Florida town during a major hurricane, and trapping several people inside their less-than-sturdy home.

THE FLOOD is set in Louisiana, and takes place primarily in a sheriff’s station rather than a police precinct or a private residence. However, the station is still short-staffed and isolated, the building is still in bad shape, and there’s a gang, a hurricane, and alligators.

In THE FLOOD, we actually start out in an abandoned house, and are introduced to the alligator threat. The alligator is uncommonly huge and looks a little too much like a special effect.

Then we get some great footage of real alligators, singly and in groups. This is impressive, and we regret later that none of it could be integrated into the rest of the action.

Titles introduce us to the inmates being transported on a prison bus. There’s Big Jim (Eoin O’Brien), in for drug trafficking and up for parole. Jox (Randall J. Bacon) is doing twenty years for armed robbery. Floyd (Mike Ferguson) has received multiple life sentences for murder and hate crimes. Angelo (Bear Williams) is also in for murder, doing life without parole.

Then there is stoic ex-soldier Russell Cody (Casper Van Dien), who has a life sentence without parole for killing a cop. Since he’s played by Van Dien and the only convict on the bus not razzing their escorts, we can correctly assume there’s more to his story.

With the news telling people to evacuate their homes and the storm already making visibility impossible, Department of Corrections bus driver Dale Elkins (Randy Wayne) decides their best bet is to get off the road and spend the night at the nearest correctional facility.

This would be the sheriff’s station in Lutree. Sheriff Jo Newman (Nicky Whelan) is unhappy that one of the deputies slacked off on putting sandbags by the doors. Now the floor is flooding. She’d rather not have five prisoners spending the night in the station’s two holding cells, but it can’t be helped.

The bus diverges from its route just before a gang of four, led by Rafe Calderon (Louis Mandylor), are about to hijack it. Rafe and his crew change their plans, and decide to attack the sheriff’s station instead. Clearly, they want one of the prisoners. But who? And why?

Of course, absolutely no one is expecting the station to fill up with not just water, but alligators.

Director Brandon Slagle does a decent job with the screenplay by Chad Law and Josh Ridgway, allowing us to get some time with each of the characters. An advantage that alligators have over sharks when it comes to creature features is that alligators roar (whereas sharks are, or at least should be, silent). Slagle and Co. make intelligent, creepy use of this fact.

However, giving the poppy genre mashup, THE FLOOD seems like it ought to be more fun than it is. While the alligators and the people intersect frequently, we never get the sense of a heist movie being invaded by menacing predators, or even an alligator movie being upended by human hijinks. The elements do impact one another, but we don’t get the feeling of, “Oh, here’s a beat that would have been impossible in a regular crime drama/non-crime alligator feature.”

The alligators are also slightly problematic. No one goes into these things expecting a wildlife documentary, but why are all four of these amphibians so improbably gigantic? While they are well-designed, they also retain the special effects look of the alligator in the opening.

If one is really, truly in the mood for a killer-alligators-in-a-hurricane flick, THE FLOOD will suffice, but it doesn’t do anything very memorable.

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