Released: July 2019
Director: Alexandre Aja
Rated R
Run Time: 87 Minutes
Distributor: Paramount Picture
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Cast:
Kaya Scodelario: Haley
Barry Pepper: Dave
Morfydd Clark: Beth
Ross Anderson: Wayne
Jose Palma: Pete
In the genre of horror, there are many different sub-genres. We have slasher movies, torture movies, rape/revenge thrillers, and the supernatural. Horror is also one of the most flexible and adaptive genres in film, despite what many people would think. You can have horror comedies like Ghostbusters and Army of Darkness while still having full-on horror flicks like The Descent, Final Destination, and Wishmaster. There is one sub-genre in horror that I’ve loved since I was a kid: The creature-feature. It is a tried-and-true form of horror that goes all the way back to the 50s with films like Tarantula, Them!, The Blob, and It Came From Beneath The Sea. These are regarded as classics within the genre, and rightly so. Over the course of the 70s and 80s, we began to see more films like Jaws, Leviathan, Deep Star Six, Piranha, and many others. One of my favorite all-time creature features was Tremors from 1990. It was scary, funny, and it did everything right. There are a lot of films in this particular field that are really good, like the ones that I just mentioned, and it’s also loaded with some really awful movies like Sharknado. Well, this summer, we ended up getting a new creature feature that despite decent reviews, got pushed to the side: Crawl.
Crawl begins as professional swimmer Haley gets a call from her sister, saying that she hasn’t heard from their dad, David. Haley decides to go check on her father because of this. Meanwhile, the town is about to be hit by a Category 5 hurricane. She finds her father in a crawlspace beneath their old house, but they aren’t alone. They are hunted by a couple of bloodthirsty alligators, so they have to fight to survive not just the storm, but the savage beasts themselves. That’s it. There is absolutely nothing more to the story than that, and you know what? That’s just fine. You don’t corrupt business or military to create tension in a film. All you need is an environment that is as threatening as the creatures themselves. The entirety of the film is set beneath a house during a massive hurricane that brings the attention of some really hungry gators. Is it realistic? Not particularly, but the film isn’t trying to be super-realistic. If you’re looking for a monster movie that’s realistic and has some message about the nature of humanity, move along. You’re not finding that here. Again, that’s a good thing. The film trims most of the unnecessary fat but keeps the bits that make these movies worth watching in the first place. In fact, the end credits of the film start at the 83-84 minute mark, so the movie doesn’t have time to get bogged down with pointless bullshit. There are some elements of characterization here and there, but they are superficial at best. Don’t come for the story. There’s really nothing there.
In Crawl, our main characters have to fend off not just alligators, but they have to survive a massive storm as well, so this movie is a bit of a mish-mash of genres as it were. It’s a disaster/horror/thriller all rolled into one. Haley and David, our main characters, aren’t the best written characters, but they come across as pretty likable people. I actually dig the semi-antagonistic relationship that Haley has with her father, David. To me it lends a bit of humanity to the goings-on that actually makes the audience care more about these two characters. All the other folks in the movie are strictly gator-bait. The acting is really good here with Kaya Scodelario playing Haley and Barry Pepper as David. Kaya was a good pick for this role as she gives the character a tough, never-back-down quality that another actress may not have been able to convey. She’s absolutely fantastic. Barry Pepper is also an amazing actor and his performance here is spot-on. Again, the characters aren’t that deep, but the actors give them enough to make them very relatable. Of course, you have to have a token pet to keep from becoming gator food.
If you learn anything about Crawl’s director, Alexandre Aja, it’s this: Aja’s films have a tendency to be extremely violent and bloody. They’re violent, but not without purpose. That kind of makes Crawl a bit of an anomaly. The film is definitely bloody and violent at times, it’s just not to the same degree as Aja’s previous films. It’s pretty restrained in that regard. Don’t get me wrong, though, when the carnage does hit, it’s brutal. People are literally torn to pieces here. It’s creature violence, so it doesn’t necessarily carry the same kind of brutality as human-0n-human violence. The gators in this film are not of the mutated or weaponized variety. They’re hyper-realistic and exaggerated in their behavior, but they’re still just animals, so you really can’t hate them for what they do. One thing you should know going into this film, is that the alligators are completely CGI. Normally, I’d bitch and moan about fully digitized creatures in movies these days, but the gators are really well done. They’re extremely detailed, right down to the scale. Yeah, their movements are extremely exaggerated, but the idea is to make the situation that much more intense. It really works. Some of the more gory moments do utilize practical effects and I absolutely appreciate that. Not only that, the storm effects are absolutely incredible. As I mentioned before, realism isn’t a factor here. A category 5 hurricane does a hell of a lot more damage than what you see in Crawl. Still, it makes for an exciting and thrilling sequence of events that just don’t let up.
Crawl is a film that doesn’t do more than what it sets out to do. It doesn’t waste time with interpersonal relationships(mostly) or some kind of grand revelation about the world. No, Crawl is about simple a film as you can get. It’s more about thrilling it’s audience with intense sequences of scares and gory moments. In that regard, the film absolutely nails it out of the park. It’s definitely one of the best creature features that I’ve seen in a long time. I don’t think it’s as good as 1980’s Alligator, but it’s definitely a good movie in its own right. In fact, I think Crawl is to Alligator as The Shallows is to Jaws. They’re not better, but they are worthy entries into a sub-genre that’s seen a lot of crap over the years. It’s really amazing to see a film like this that is so unpretentious and honest about what it wants to deliver. I really can’t think of many downsides to the film aside from people doing some stupid things in the film, but that’s standard for movies like this. It’s a hell of a good time, and it’s a shame that it really didn’t get the attention it deserved.
My Final Recommendation: See you later, alligator. 9/10