Streaming
Services: Amazon
Prime Video, Hulu
Movie
Name/Year: Crawl
(2019)
Genre: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Length: 87 minutes
Rating: R
Production/Distribution: Paramount Pictures, Raimi
Productions, Central Partnership, CinemArt, Constantin-Film, NOS Audiovisuais, Odeon,
Towa Pictures, United International Pictures (UIP), Universal Pictures
International (UPI), Paramount Home Entertainment, Paramount Home Media
Distribution
Director: Alexandre Aja
Writer: Michael Rasmussen, Shawn
Rasmussen
Actors: Kaya Scodelario, Barry
Pepper, Morfydd Clark, Ross Anderson, Jose Palma, George Somner, Anson Boon,
Ami Metcalf, Tina Pribicevic, Srna Vasiljevic
Blurb
from IMDb: A
young woman, while attempting to save her father during a category 5 hurricane,
finds herself trapped in a flooding house and must fight for her life against
alligators.
Selina’s
Point of View:
The
ambiance in my house was perfect for this film. I had a loud thunderstorm
echoing outside, I caught a spider on my foot at the same time as the main
character had to deal with a bunch of them. The universe was trying to make it
easy for me to enjoy Crawl. It shouldn’t have needed that much help,
either, because I love creature features.
I
felt like this story was an easy idea. Not in a bad way, either. It hit some
marks for believability. It’s easy to combine things like hurricanes and alligators
in a setting like Florida. There’s no moment where you’re drawn out of the film
by the thought that something doesn’t belong. Sometimes it really does pay to
keep it simple.
Honestly,
the gators themselves were also really well done. They looked right, if a
little bigger than I would expect. Of course, it’s a horror/thriller. They needed
to be menacing. Making them bigger helped.
I
found no fault in the visuals. Alexandre Aja (Horns, The Hills Have Eyes,
Piranha 3D) is a great director; I’ve liked the majority of his stuff. He’s
not a favorite of mine, but I would call his name on a project a selling point.
Crawl feels right for one of his flicks.
The
majority of the problems I had fell to the script. There were some really hokey
lines. It stuck as close to a recipe as possible – to the point where I could
predict what was going to be said next. There were a couple of moments that
caught me off guard, but for the most part it felt like a B-movie script that
was adopted by A-movie creators and actors.
I
didn’t hate it. It’s a decent film to throw on when you’re looking for some
creature feature action, but it’s not a movie that’ll cross my mind when people
ask for recommendations.
Cat’s
Point of View:
Let
me tell you, the premise of this movie is the stuff of nightmares.
I
can’t tell you how grateful I am that I’ve spent my life in the more
land-locked northern portion of Louisiana. Hurricanes tend to lose a lot of
steam by the time they get to my neck of the woods. We still have plenty of
wetland areas, however, and gators. We also see the occasional flood. It’s not
just rivers and lakes, though. Our water table is so high that sometimes all it
takes is just some good soaking rain.
All
the same, when the words ‘hurricane’ and ‘category 5’ are mentioned together, I
can’t help but twitch. I think it’s something that is likely ingrained into
most residents here – especially those that were around for 2005’s Katrina.
We’re
not really talking about Louisiana for this particular movie, though. We’re
talking about Florida. The two states have a lot in common, however. Here, even
in Northwestern Louisiana, we have the occasional gators trying to cross roads
and causing hazards. Florida is the state that launched memes of gators
climbing fences and chilling in a residential pool on top of an inflatable
alligator. Both states share another issue aside from modern dinosaurs. Because
the aforementioned water table is so high – we don’t generally have basements.
We have crawlspaces under our houses if you have a pier and beam foundation
instead of a slab.
In
the case of this movie, the house here has tall piers so there’s a good amount
of space underneath for the ductwork and plumbing – why not gators? If you have
openings present, wildlife is going to find its way in just because it can.
Pardon
my rambling. I had a bit of a kneejerk reaction when I noticed that so many
were considering the film setting a basement. The title of Crawl is
symbolic for more than just the reptilian adversaries, but also where the majority
of the film takes place.
This
movie was high on my July 2019 Top 20 list for a reason. I’m happy to say that
it lived up to expectations for me. I didn’t sleep very well after watching
this the first time, either. Not only was the premise of the movie plausible,
but it was also generally based on something that actually happened.
I
have a real soft spot for creature features. This one really takes the cake.
The gators were rendered so well that I honestly could swear that they weren’t
CGI. The production team did a bang-up job there on the behaviors of these
toothsome terrors. I believed every minute of the animal encounters. I’ve seen
the feeding-time shows at local alligator parks, and have seen first-hand these
behaviors.
I
appreciated some of the little ironies and references scattered here and there
throughout the film. I’m not going to spoil them for you, so see if you can
find some of them as you go.
All
told, this was a really solid edge-of-your-seat thriller. For this sort of
movie, there was even a surprising amount of character development and
emotional interaction between the leads. Kaya Scodelario (Clash of the
Titans, Skins, Tiger House) and Barry Pepper (Snitch, Monster Trucks,
Bitter Harvest) were well-matched as a father-daughter pairing. I do wonder
how much swim training Scodelario had for the role, or if it’s something she’s
had in her life outside acting. Either way, I completely bought in, whether she
had a swim double or it was her own skill shown on screen.
I
would recommend Crawl in a heartbeat.
Rotten
Tomatoes Critic Score – 83%
Rotten
Tomatoes Audience Score – 75%
Metascore – 60/100
Metacritic
User Score – 6.1/10
IMDB
Score – 6.2/10
CinemaScore – B
Trust
the Dice: Selina’s Rating – 3/5
Trust
the Dice: Cat’s Rating – 4/5
Movie
Trailer:
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