Horror Movie Review: The Flood (2023)

From director Brandon Slagle, and writers Chad Law and Josh Ridgway comes the low-budget, gator-based semi-disaster horror, The Flood.

With an uninspired name like that, it’s no surprise that The Flood isn’t trying too hard. Taking elements of recent gator-horror Crawl, elements of Assault on Precinct 13, and even touches of Hard Rain to craft a forgettable, but slightly enjoyable experience.

A storm is causing a lot of issues for small town Sheriff Jo Newman (Nicky Whelan), who gets a call no small-town Sheriff would ever want. A call requesting that she provide assistance to a prison transport bus that is carrying some dangerous criminals. Criminals like Big Jim (Eoin O’Brien), Floyd (Mike Ferguson), Jox (Randall J. Bacon), Angelo (Bear Williams) and Russel Cody (Casper Van Dien). The plan being to lock the prisoners in the cell and see out the storm at the police station.

They’re not the only ones who plan to pay a visit to the police station though. A armed group led by Rafe (Louis Mandylor) assault the station, wanting to get their hands on Cody, who ripped them off in a previous heist.

All this and no-one aware that the building has even more uninvited guests, as several CGI gators have arrived and now everyone is going to have put aside their differences to survive.

Which could have been a really compelling story if the characters were given any life, but that’s not the case. Instead, viewers can easily pick out the gator-bait and predict their fate. The ‘heroes’ are obvious, the conflicts are sign-posted, and the ‘pull together’ aspect never manages to get off the ground.

Forget all that though, this is an alligator movie and that’s what the focus should be on, right? Well, it is, but thanks to some really horrendous and inconsistent CGI, most will be hoping the film stops focusing on them. It’s not just the gators though, almost all the effects are terrible and really harm the immersion factor of the storm outside.

It’s hard to take this story, and the characters plight, seriously when they’re surrounded by shoddy effects. Though that is par for the course with a movie like this. If you’re watching it, you know what you’re getting and will be able to forgive a lot of its flaws. It’s not a terrible movie by any stretch, but it’s not going to stick long in the memory.