Film has taught us that swamps and the general Florida Everglades area in particular are creepy and weird. This is probably not entirely accurate, but it’s certainly been depicted that way by many horror filmmakers. Whether it’s creepy woodspeople, something to do with swamp creatures, or the most mined category of all, alligators, it’s certainly been fertile ground for horror. Gator Face is yet another example of tapping that well, for better or worse.
Gator Face tells the story of Jess, a teenager who is inexplicably having a holiday in a remote area of the Florida backwaters with her two friends. As they return from the beach, her friends are murdered by a man wearing an alligator mask who seems to be able to command the amphibians in the local area through some otherworldly power. Jess escapes and luckily runs into a group of college students who are having car trouble, and then they as a group including Jess have to try evade the murderous Gator Face, only to find that there’s an entire cult of people who worship the alligators and are intent on sacrificing them.
It’s difficult to know where to start with Gator Face. On the surface it should be at least a “by-the-numbers” not revolutionary but fairly tidy little horror movie. It is not. It’s not even that there’s anything drastically wrong with the film per se. The acting performances are fine, the effects for the alligators look ok, and the creepy villain who heads up the church (who is not Gator Face) is suitably evil. It’s just quite dull, and joyless. Even the most brutal horror films have a sense of underlying levity in places, because otherwise it’s a drawn out march towards the inevitable extinction of the protagonists.
The kills are all very pedestrian, which isn’t a problem, but it feels like watching a procession for the antagonists. There’s minimal glimmers of hope for the out-of-their-depth college kids, as they are slaughtered one-by-one. The idea of a cult of alligator worshippers should be an interesting twist on the format. However, there seems to be a significant amount of background and exposition that probably needed to be fleshed out. The story is plodding at best, but even the visuals of the congregation are just very poorly done. There were absolutely some good ideas, and had they been executed with a bit more flair and vision there could have been something great in the offing, but this was not the case.
Gator Face could have been a very good horror film. It could have been dark and brutal, it could have been tongue-in-cheek, it could have been made with any number of tones in mind. However, Gator Face breaks the cardinal rule for any horror film. It’s dull. It’s about a man wearing an alligator face mask, murdering people for a cult and it’s somehow still dull.
Gator Face had its UK premiere at FrightFest 2026 on Sunday, August 30
