I watched this movie after enduring a horrible movie that I didn't want to review, so I was in a pissy mood and expecting this to be complete garbage. After all, it's about a giant killer alligator escaping the sewer system and wreaking havoc and killing people, and the only reviews I'd ever read compared this movie to "Piranha," which is a movie I HATED. How could the movie possibly be good wit all this stacked against it? But this movie surprised me. I had a damn good time watching it. Ever heard that urban legend about how if you flush your pet alligator down the toilet, it will survive in the sewer and eventually the sewers will be teeming with bloodthirsty alligators? I heard this when I was a kid, and it's pretty stupid, but as a kid, I believed it and steered clear of manhole covers just in case. Well, this movie b rings that urban legend to life. A family buys a pet alligator for their daughter, but when the animal won't stop biting people, the father flushes it down the toilet, and into the sewer it goes.

Robert Forster plays a local cop who starts to get suspicious when body parts begin surfacing in the city's water supply. He investigates the sewer system, and the alligator eats his partner. Bummer. He investigates some more and meets a hot chick scientist named Marisa (played by Robin Riker) who insists that there simply can't be an alligator living in the sewer system because the animal would die in such an environment. Luckily, a local reporter snaps some shots of the alligator right before he gets eaten by said alligator, and then the police HAVE to start trying to fight this thing. There's not a lot of gore in the first half of this movie, considering the subject matter, but the movie moves along at a brisk pace, so I don't have any complaints. Of course, once the alligator breaks free from the sewer and starts roaming around the town eating random people, things get more interesting (and more bloody too! It's a win-win situation!)

Someone should sue this movie for ripping off the theme from "Jaws." Every time the Alligator started moving in to attack people, I expected Jaws to pop up, too. It's bad enough that the plot has to be ripped off from Jaws, do you have to crib the musical score from that movie, too? The Special effects aren't very special and yeah, the movie is a cheap two-bit knock off of "Jaws," but so what? I liked it anyway (and so should you).

• The first victim's name is Edward Norton. "The Honeymooners" (1955) features a sewer worker of that name.