ABC reportedly paid $3 million to air Alligator on network television, nearly twice what the movie cost to make. That is a good reminder of how much life a sharp little B movie could build after theaters. Imprint divides that afterlife across four discs: the 91-minute theatrical cut on 4K UHD and Blu-ray, a 98-minute television cut on a separate Blu-ray, and the 1991 sequel on another disc entirely.

The original begins with a souvenir baby alligator getting flushed down a toilet and spending the next several years in the sewers feeding on discarded laboratory animals treated with growth hormones. By the time body parts begin washing up, the animal is roughly 36 feet long. Detective David Madison (Robert Forster, The Black Hole) catches the case and eventually teams with herpetologist Marisa Kendall (Robin Riker) to deal with the increasingly difficult problem under the city.

Director Lewis Teague, who later made Cat’s Eye, disliked the script he was initially given, so John Sayles rewrote it, reportedly during a cross-country flight. Sayles had already mixed monster-movie mechanics with satire in Piranha and would do it again with The Howling. Here the jokes bite cops, politicians, scientists, and rich people almost as hard as the reptile does. Sayles wrote the punch lines, and the gator ate the rest. Forster plays Madison with weary humor and decency, the sort of performance Quentin Tarantino later cited when casting him as Max Cherry in Jackie Brown.

The star attraction was a 36-foot mechanical alligator built around an aluminum frame, with two performers working inside it. Richard Helmer, who had experience on the JAWS shark, worked on the mechanics, while real alligators photographed on miniature sets help fill the gaps. A young Bryan Cranston even contributed to the effects crew. Roger Ebert hated the movie in 1980. Its reputation has been considerably kinder since, largely because Sayles and Teague understood that a ridiculous premise works better when the people making it are smarter than the joke. A full review of the film ran here in 2023.

Alligator II: The Mutation shares no characters or actors with its predecessor. Only producer Brandon Chase and cinematographer Joseph Mangine returned. Jon Hess (Watchers) directs a new story about another oversized gator, this time mutated by chemical waste beneath Regent Park. Joseph Bologna’s stubborn cop is the best thing in it, while Dee Wallace (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial), Richard Lynch, Steve Railsback (Lifeforce), and wrestler Professor Toru Tanaka fill out the supporting cast.

The problem is that the sequel follows the first movie’s path with most of the wit removed. The creature appears less often, looks stiffer when it does, and the story never finds a personality beyond imitation. It is useful to have in the box. It is not why anyone should buy the box.