If you consider yourself a fan of trashy monster movies, then I am pretty sure you are familiar with Cocaine Bear and all its rip-offs, which try to put predators like sharks and werewolves in substance-induced frenzies. Because let’s face it, why not? It’s easier to put a mindless twist on age-old creature survival narratives to make easy money than to cultivate the genre by making something unique. Anyway, while most moviegoers don’t really get the appeal of the silly fun derived from these gimmicky flicks, I appreciate the zaniness that goes into making the audience believe in such wild shenanigans. In the vein of such monster exploitation movies, The Bayou asks a question you never thought of—what if alligators got high on meth, and a party of unlikeable characters were put into their territory? The result could have been much more entertaining than it turned out to be, that’s for sure, as the lack of a cohesive plot and the badly written characters make this movie such a tiring watch that I won’t be surprised if you can’t sit through it in one go.
Spoilers Ahead
Why Did the Gators Become Aggressive?
The opening scene of The Bayou, set in the innermost corner of the Everglades, shows a tactical unit of DEA agents raiding a secretive drug den, killing/arresting the majority of the guards and workers in the process. The treacherous, remote, alligator-infested area was perfect cover for the meth business, until it wasn’t, that is. During the gunfight between the dealers and authorities, stashed drugs get mixed with the swamp water—and as a result, alligators in the nearby vicinity get mutated, grow larger, and become unusually violent and territorial in nature.
Why Did Kyle Venture to the Florida Keys?
Kyle, a biology grad studying apex predators, sets out on a journey with her friends to the Florida Keys. Kyle lost her elder brother, Jamie, in a tragic accident and hasn’t been herself ever since. As shown in the flashback sequence, during an armed hold-up in a convenience store, Jamie had shown bravery by apprehending the robber, and in the tense situation, Kyle had accidentally shot her brother to death in a desperate attempt to save him from mortal danger. Kyle hasn’t been able to forgive herself for the dreadful mishap, and to respect Jamie’s wishes, she is going to the Florida Keys on vacation to scatter his ashes. Kyle’s best friend, Alice, was supposed to accompany her—but much to Kyle’s dismay, she has brought their friends Sam and Malika to tag along as well. Malika is hinted to have shared a strong bond with Jamie, but she can’t help but act like a pesky, toxic teenager from the first scene she appears in, as it is her own ‘coping mechanism’ of sorts. Sam, on the other hand, wasn’t there for Kyle during her lowest point after she lost her brother, and reasonably, Kyle didn’t want anyone except Alice to accompany her. Anyway, the journey begins, and seeing Kyle stuck in her mental prison, Alice advises her to move on, only for Kyle to act even more distant as a result.
How Did Kyle And Her Friends End Up In the Everglades?
Malika is revealed to have arranged a cheaper and much faster way of reaching the Florida Keys, as she takes her friends to a sketchy, possibly illegal private airline operator, Frank—a shady, day-drinking pilot who, in all probability, was associated with the drug dealers shown in the beginning of the movie. Kyle is apparently afraid of flying but agrees to join her friends nevertheless, and they are accompanied by a bunch of uninteresting co-passengers who viewers can already identify as gator bait.
No sooner does the flight take off than a heated argument kicks off between the super busy corporate guy Rufus, who can’t stay off his call for once, and the rest of the passengers. Following turbulence and an issue with the engine, the plane crash lands in the Florida Everglades—in the middle of nowhere. To make things that much trickier for the passengers, network coverage appears unavailable on the phones that are still in working condition, and given the illegal, covert nature of their flight manifest, the black box of the crashed plane remained inactive from the beginning—which means they shouldn’t expect any sort of rescue operation either. Clarence, the elderly passenger, dies during the crash landing, sending his wife, Maude, reeling from pain—and Ray, the co-pilot, dies after getting chomped to death in the jaws of a massive alligator. Kyle is able to sense something off right away, as she is familiar with the behavioral aspects of apex predators such as alligators, and dons her biologist hat to inform co-passengers about survival strategies. Kyle suggests everyone else stick together and move instead of waiting for help.
Why Did Alice Steal Alligator Eggs?
Alice discovers an alligator nest nearby and steals one of the eggs from it, as she remembers Sam mentioning these sell for a fortune. Previously, it was revealed that Alice is going through a financial crisis thanks to her mother, who got herself entangled with the wrong crowd; she had to sell her car and even dropped out of college to make ends meet—which is why stealing the egg seems to be a lucrative idea to her. However, this plot point goes nowhere at all, except for contributing to a really stupid series of events during the climactic moments of the movie.
In The Bayou’s ending, as the passengers continue moving through the swamps, they decide to spend the first night literally sleeping out in the open—and miraculously enough, no one except for Rufus gets taken by alligators. Maude becomes the next victim of these hyperactive reptilians, and while fleeing from the gators, the rest of the survivors take refuge in a shack. Another passenger, Zoe, has gotten herself badly injured after crash landing, and her loving husband, Dom, tries to strengthen her resolve by reminding her of their daughter, who is waiting for them at home. All through the movie, Malika continues to behave horribly with every single passenger, blames Kyle for Jamie’s demise, and makes a really strong case for herself making it onto the list of most satisfying character deaths ever. On the other hand, Sam makes amends with Kyle by apologizing to her for leaving her when she needed him most.
Inside the shack, Kyle comes across a hand-drawn map, and going against Frank’s warnings, decides to lead the survivors to follow it by moving through the waterways in a raft. While a proposal like this sounds strange to others, Kyle believes that, during the daytime, alligators will be less active and decides to take the chance anyway. Having built a raft, the team once again gets chased by alligators, and Zoe decides to sacrifice her life to help the rest of the survivors escape by drawing the gators’ attention. Finally, following the map, the survivors reach the drug den, and seeing the signs of bloody conflict all around, Frank quickly deduces the illegal nature of operations conducted at the place.
Was Kyle Able To Get Over Jaime’s Demise?
Inside the alligator-infested drug den, while the rest of the survivors get busy cautiously exploring the area, Frank confronts Malika; finally having had enough of her tantrums, he decides to push her off a ledge to kill her. However, as Malika literally hangs on for dear life, Frank gets taken by an alligator who literally attacks from the roof above! Sam, Kyle, Alice, and Dom rush to the spot and save Malika, who, after surviving a near-death experience, reconciles with Kyle at last—and apologizes for her actions. Malika’s death would have made the movie somewhat bearable; unfortunately, that wasn’t in the cards, it seems.
Using the still-active communication system of the facility, Kyle and co. call for rescue and try to make their way outside while evading the swamp monsters lying around. Sam is the next in line as he comically dies after alerting resting alligators while following his friends. Finally, just before the exit area, a ginormous alligator is seen lying, and to distract it, Alice decides to take out the egg she carried with her—proving herself the genius of her group. However, she realizes this isn’t “Jurassic Park,” and unlike the dinos, the gators will not give her a head start to escape in exchange for an egg—as one of her hands gets chomped straight off. Putting her own life on the line, Kyle saves Alice and manages to kill the gator by stabbing and burning it to death. Alice, Kyle, Dom, and Malika reach outside and get relieved to finally see the rescue chopper on the horizon.
Sometime later, Kyle visits the Florida Keys—this time she has learned her lesson and has gone on a solo trip, riding her brother Jamie’s motorbike—which he wanted to entrust to his sister. Jamie wanted Kyle to be free, not let herself be entrapped in her own uncertainties—and his advice, coupled with her recent experience of saving lives of people close to him, has finally helped Kyle to put the past behind her. Spreading the ashes of her brother, Kyle rides away down the picturesque coastal road.
During the final moments of the movie, Frank is seen to be still alive; despite sustaining hideous injuries, he cryptically laughs before the screen fades to black. This might act as a hint for a future sequel, one where Frank will probably want to attend to his unfinished business by killing Malika, although it will take a high stretch of suspension of disbelief for him to survive the mess he has gotten himself into.
