Alligator (1980)

You’ve heard the urban myth about the kid who flushes a baby pet alligator down the toilet, and years later it becomes a fearsome predator, emerging from the city’s sewers to terrorize unsuspecting urbanites? If so, you’ve also grasped the logline for Alligator, a gritty indie horror classic again written by John Sayles.

The cast is first-rate: It includes Robert Forster and Bryan Cranston, who would reunite decades later on Breaking Bad. And there’s a little social commentary: The alligator grows as big as it does by eating the carcasses of animals used in illegal livestock experimentation and cast off in the sewers. Get it? Our consumerism created the alligator’s.

Alligator director Lewis Teague also directed another very scary animal attack film that is coming up soon on our list.