Cult 101: Alligator (1980) 4K Restoration
Director: Lewis Teague Run Time: 91 min. Rating: R Release Year: 1980
Starring: Dean Jagger, Michael V. Gazzo, Robert Forster, Robin Riker, Sydney Lassick
Country: United States
Language: English
Presented as part of the 2023 edition of Cult 101.
About the film:
It lives 50 feet beneath the city. It’s 36 feet long. It weighs 2,000 pounds… and it’s about to break out! A baby alligator is flushed down a toilet and survives by eating discarded lab rats that’ve been injected by experimental growth hormones. But when the once-tiny family pet escapes the sewers and goes on a rampage in the city, it’s up to an easygoing detective and a herpetologist to stop the carnage.
Written and directed by animal attack movie veterans John Sayles (1978’s Piranha, 1981’s The Howling) and Lewis Teague (1983’s Cujo) and starring Robert Forster in one of his most memorable roles, Alligator (1980) is a sly thriller with a surprising amount of bite!
About the filmmaker:
Lewis Teague is a versatile American film director. In 1963, with a semester to go, he dropped out of the New York University undergraduate film program after his short film It’s About This Carpenter earned him an offer to work on the The Alfred Hitchcock Hour as part of a Universal Studios apprentice director program. For a few years, he managed and programmed an underground movie theater on the sunset strip. In 1974, on the recommendation of his NYU classmate Martin Scorsese, Teague was hired by independent film trailblazer Roger Corman at New World Pictures.
Before directing feature films, Teague worked as an editor on a number of short films, including the Academy Award-winning documentary short Number Our Days (1976). His feature films includes Alligator (1980), Cujo (1983), Cat’s Eye (1985), The Jewel of the Nile (1985), Navy SEALs (1990), Wedlock (1991), and The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion! (1997). In 2016, he finished his degree and graduated from NYU at the age of seventy-eight.
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