Folk horror meets monster action in the practical-effects fright film.
Epic Pictures and Dread will release GATOR FACE to select theaters September 11, and then to digital platforms September 15. Written and directed by Padraig Reynolds (OPEN 24 HOURS, RITES OF SPRING), it stars Tabitha Brownstone, Amariah Dionne, Scot Scurlock, Ella Mosca and Nikolas Kolasinski in the title role. The synopsis: “GATOR FACE follows a group of friends whose sun-soaked Florida vacation takes a dark turn when they become prey to a sinister cult that sacrifices its victims to an alligator god. Far from the carefree escape they had planned, the friends are drawn deeper into an isolated world governed by ritual and violence, forcing them into a desperate fight to survive both the cult and the deadly creature at the center of its beliefs.
“Blending creature horror, slasher thrills and Southern folklore, GATOR FACE takes an old-school approach to bringing its central threat to the screen. Reynolds and his filmmaking team shot with live alligators and relied on practical gore and in-camera effects rather than CGI or AI, grounding the film’s more extreme moments in the physical environment of the Florida swamps. The result embraces the tactile, unpredictable quality of classic creature features while creating a mythology of its own around the mysterious figure of Gator Face.”
“I grew up loving creature features where what you were seeing on screen felt real, and that was something I wanted to capture with GATOR FACE,” says Reynolds, who worked with alligator and exotic animal sanctuary Bellowing Acres on the film. “Shooting in the Florida swamps, using practical effects and working with real alligators gave us an atmosphere and unpredictability we never could have manufactured. We wanted to make a fun, frightening horror film that combines a cult, Southern folklore and a very real predator into something audiences can experience together.”
“GATOR FACE has everything we love about classic creature horror,” says executive producer and Epic Pictures CEO Patrick Ewald, “but Padraig has given it a personality entirely its own. Shooting with real alligators and committing to practical effects brings an immediacy to the film that audiences can feel. It’s wild, bloody and unpredictable, and exactly the kind of independent genre filmmaking we’re excited to bring to audiences through Dread.”
