Metacritic reviews

Clever, funny, and wonderfully bloody.

All in all, a fine example of what a sense of humor can do with a low budget and an old idea.

It is, to be sure, a Jaws ripoff, but it has enough sidelong wit and head-on scares to guarantee its revival as a classic cult item long after more expensive, ambitious efforts like Altered States have been forgotten. [13 Apr 1981]

A very funny meditation on the old ''what happens when you flush the goldfish down the john?'' nightmare. It is also a formula film that simultaneously demonstrates the specific requirements of the formula while sending them up with good humor.

An effective and unpretentious treat.

Alligator is bloody and boisterous, featuring the only man-eating monster in memory named Ramone.

What really puts Alligator above all the other Jaws"ripoffs is its snappy sense of humor. [20 Apr 1981, p.93]

Alligator, the most amusing variation yet on the Jaws formula, finds plenty of room for incidental humor and romantic byplay while sustaining a breezy suspense plot. [20 May 1981, p.B1]

Enjoyable, but this croc-fest is no Lake Placid.

I suggest a plan: Why not try flushing this movie down the toilet to see if it also grows into something big and fearsome?