Director – Brandon Slagle, Screenplay – Chad Law & Josh Ridgway, Producer – Daemon Hillin, Photography – Niccolo de la Fere, Music – Randy Kalsi, Visual Effects – CKVFX (Steve Clark & Paul Knott), Special Effects – Kaidtiyod Krasian, Prachid Krasian, Kanitta Masong, Somhop Petchthong & Hanchai Sakaeo, Art Direction – Terrapong Tossapol. Production Company – Hillin Entertainment/Ashland Hill Media Finance/Benetone Films/BGG Capital/The Video Store, Inc/Red Phoenix Productions.
Cast
Casper Van Dien (Russell Cody), Nicky Whelan (Sheriff Jo Newman), Louis Mandylor (Rafe Calderon), Ryan Francis (Jay Stamper), Eoin O’Brien (Big Jim Pruett), Bear Williams (Angelo Cooper), Randall Bacon (Jonathan ‘Jox’ Apone), Alex Winters (Deputy Whitlock), Alex Farnham (Nate Hudson), Kim DeLonghi (Eva Carter), Randy Wayne (Bill Elkins), Mike Ferguson (Floyd), Jonathen Simpson (Deputy Pine), Luis Nava (Omar Vasquez), Devanny Pinn (Sommer), Garrett Mahlmeister (Clarence)
Plot
As a hurricane strikes Louisiana, the warders driving a prison transport bus decide to take shelter. They stop in and offload the prisoners at the tiny jail in Lutree under the command of Sheriff Jo Newman. They are unaware that associates of Russell Cody, one of the convicts being transported, are following them. Cody’s associates now break into the jail armed with guns determined to free him. However, due to the storm, the jail is starting to flood, bringing with it a horde of hungry alligators.
We had a spate of killer crocodile (and to a lesser extent alligator) films in the late 2000s with the standout likes of Black Water (2007) and Rogue (2007), as well as the Hollywood offering Primeval (2007). This was followed by other B-budget efforts such as Croc (2007), Supercroc (2007), Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus (2010), Croczilla (2012), Freshwater (2016), The Hatching (2016), Croc! (2022), plus a line of Lake Placid sequels, while more recent offerings have gone towards the deliberately ridiculous with Bad CGI Gator (2023) and Methgator (2024). There has been the odd better-budgeted item like the superb Thai The Pool (2018) and Alexandre Aja’s Crawl (2019). The genre goes all the way back to at least The Great Alligator (1979) and Alligator (1980) and other 80s films like Dark Age (1987) and Killer Crocodile (1989).
Brandon Slagle is a director who has made a number of low-budget genre films, first co-directing the superhero film The Dark Avengers (2005) and then solo directing Subject 87 (2007), Area 51 Confidential (2011), ViViD (2011), The Black Dahlia Haunting (2012), Dead Sea (2014), House of Manson (2014), Crossbreed (2019), Attack of the Unknown (2020), The Dawn (2019) and the subsequent Arena Wars (2024). He has also worked as a writer and in particular an actor on various other films.
The plot of The Flood is essentially a variation on John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), which had a mix of cops and convicts on a prison transfer under siege in a police station. The only difference is that the horde of crazed gang members shooting at them in Precinct 13 have been replaced here by a horde of hungry alligators who have invaded the police station amidst the flooding waters of a hurricane, along with the well-armed associates of a crime kingpin come to free him.
Nicky Whelan tries to prevent an alligator getting in
I expected The Flood to be no more than another B crocodile/alligator film. However, it surprised me in a number of ways and was far better than expected. One of the best aspects is the alligator effects, which look extremely convincing and come with a fine detail put into them. Brandon Slagle develops a good deal of tension, particularly during the scene with the group trying to climb up into the ceiling as the alligators break their way through into the holding cells. Another surprise is that the credits reveal that the film was not shot in Louisiana but in Bangkok, Thailand.
The main names in the cast are Casper Van Dien playing a tough, smart convict – he is introduced as a cop killer but is made redeemable and sympathetic with a piece of writing where he explains that that he took the blame for what somebody else did. The other mildly known name is Louis Mandylor, a B movie veteran like Van Dien. The one who made me pay attention was Australian model Nicky Whelan who has moved over into acting since the late 2000s. She impresses in particular in a scene where she has the prisoners lined up for an ID parade and stands up to the tough guy banter being thrown at her.
