This is the next feature from Wolf Creek director Greg McLean, who decides to tackle creature-features this time 'round. There have been a number of killer alligator and crocodile films over the years, and except for a couple of decent efforts, there really hasn’t been a lot of success to come out of the sub-genre. That is, until now. Sadly, the studios don't share the same interest, as the movie was supposed to get a wide theatrical release early last year, but another croc flick (Primeval) beat them to it, and after failing at the box office, this was pulled off the slate.

After receiving various tentative release dates, the movie finally got a limited theatrical release this past April, before settling on an August DVD debut. It's a shame that a movie like this didn't get the play it deserved, but I don't really blame the studios from being scared of potentially bad box office numbers. The story is a simple one; revolving around a travel writer who hops on a river cruise with a group of other tourists. After a flair is spotted in the distance, the tour captain directs them to a supposedly sacred part of the river, however instead of discovering people in search of aid, they find themselves stranded on a small spot of land with a giant croc circling around them, waiting for them to drop their guard and the tide to rise.

Taking some pointers from the beloved Jaws, Rogue focuses on the hysteria of the survivors and their attempts to make it off the little mud island and onto land without crossing paths with the vicious man-eating crocodile. I liked the flick; it was interesting and had decent character development, so we actually cared whether or not these people died, and the croc itself wasn't ridiculously big to the point of being a little too unrealistic. This is essentially a slasher movie, but instead of a masked knife-wielding killer, we have a crocodile that follows its own set of rules for survival. Ruthlessly hunting the remaining group members one by one, we witness the characters stressfully come up with a means of escape, as the rising tide only gives them a limited amount of time before the little island is entirely under water.

This is probably one of the best killer-croc/gator films I've seen come out of the genre. The movie offers gore in all the right places and even delivers a great man-vs-beast matchup towards the end of the film. It's clear that writer/director Greg McLean is a man to keep an eye on, as he obviously knows what to do to please us genre fans.

We're given a decent amount of gore in the right places and not shown an entirely unrealistic crocodile. With added character development and interesting claustrophobic scenarios, the film proved to be one of the better killer croc/gator movies to come out of the genre. Check this out.