Movie Review: Crawl

Crawl *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Alexandre Aja.

Written by: Michael Rasmussen & Shawn Rasmussen.

Starring: Kaya Scodelario (Haley Keller), Barry Pepper (Dave Keller), Ross Anderson (Wayne Taylor), Anson Boon (Stan), George Somner (Marv), Ami Metcalf (Lee), Jose Palma (Pete), Morfydd Clark (Beth Keller), Tina Pribicevic (Young Haley).

 

Every summer movie season needs a film like Crawl – an unpretentious, guilty pleasure of a horror movie – preferably one involving large animals eating people. These movies, when done well, can deliver a hell of a fun time at the movies. Crawl is a film like that – a film like The Shallows or Deep Blue Sea – utterly ridcilous in every conceivable way, and still so much fun that you hardly care. And this time instead of sharks, its alligators, so that’s new.

 

The film stars Kaya Scodelario as Haley Keller – who, like all heroines in movies involving animals that can swim, is a competitive swimmer. She is struggling on her university team – probably because she is going through “personal issues” – mainly involving her dad Dave (Barry Pepper), who also used to be her swim coach. She is devastated by the recent divorce of her parents – and blames herself. And then, of course, a massive hurricane is about to hit Southern Florida – and no one can contact her dad. So she heads down to her house – and wouldn’t you know it, he’s trapped in the basement of the house, because the rain caused the overflow drain pipe to flood, and two alligators are now stalking around the basement – looking to kill him. And now, of course, Haley. As the storm hits, the water rises – and they have no way to contact the outside world.

 

What happens over the 90 minute runtime of Crawl is, in a word, silly. Given the injuries they suffer through the film, both Dave and Haley would probably be killed multiple times, or at least so incapicipated that they would die. And yet, despite being bitten and dragged, etc. – they barely seem to notice. The movie basically has two characters – not including the gators (and an adorable dog) – but it does invent some ways to get more people into the film so they can become alligator food. And those can get kind of gruesome – without going over the top.

 

The film was directed by Alexandre Aja – who a decade ago seemed like perhaps he was on his way to becoming a great horror director. His breakthrough film High Tension is loved by some (not by me) – and his remake of The Hill Has Eyes is arguably better than Wes Craven’s (perhaps only I think that- but I’m right). But it hasn’t quite worked out for whatever reason – and his career has slowed. Here, he shows genuine skill at staging a minatsream horror film – with creative kills and scenes that build tension quickly. Certainly the movie relies on jump scare after jump scare at times (including introducting even more alligators when needed) – and adding a cute job named Sugar is fairly cheap way to make people care – because, of course, we don’t care if people die -  but kill a dog and people will riot (I cannot explain it – but that’s just true).

 

Crawl is not going to win any awards for originality. You’ve seen this movie before – and probably better. But for a summer movie, Crawl is lean, mean and entertaining. And you team it up in the future with Deep Blue Sea or The Shallows, and you have a hell of fun night ahead of you.