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Title: A typically mediocre-but-fun Fifties horror.
Review: Recently re-screening this film again, for the first time in about 36 years, I was surprised to find that it is about as good as I remembered it -- that is, not very! But it remains a fairly enjoyable example of grim Fifties B and W horror. A well-meaning scientist has discovered a miraculous method which enables humans to recover from devastating injuries in the same way some reptiles do. Wow! But there is, of course, one little side effect -- it also turns them into semi-alligators. Beverly Garland turns in a good performance as the gutsy heroine, and so does Lon Chaney Jr as a brutish drunk. The atmospheric swamp setting is also a plus. The big payoff scene, in which the unfortunate hero gets an overdose of radiation and becomes an almost total alligator (complete with alligator head) is memorably outrageous.
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