Crawl

Ok, so there are more holes in this plot than in an entire factory of Swiss cheese and it does, quite literally, level up from the basement to the roof - but I actually quite enjoyed it. Accomplished swimmer “Haley” (Kaya Scodelario) is worried about her dad (Barry Pepper) who isn’t answering his phone and there’s a hurricane coming. With the roads gridlocked, she heads off to find out what’s what at his home and next thing we know, both are trapped in his flooded out basement and there is one very hungry alligator marauding about looking for some “Haley” flavoured snacks. With the relentless rain pouring down, the winds blowing and the lightning lighting up the sky, she knows that she is going to do all of the work here as her father is injured and help isn’t coming any time soon. Fortunately, her legs seem as impervious to it’s jaws as it’s eyes appear to be to her stabbing them with a screwdriver, so we know that this adventure is going to go all the way as the waters rise, beasties get hungrier and angrier and the humans have to use all of their ingenuity to survive. Will they? Well, no I don’t suppose there is really a lot of actual jeopardy here but the photography gets up close and personal with the scaly fiend and Scodelario manages with far less hysterical shrieking than we have might have expected. It does what it says on the can, nothing more nor less and if you are looking for something claustrophobic, slightly menacing and quickly paced then this ought to fit the bill.

**Hurricanes, alligators, and a fractured father-daughter relationship - Crawl is a fun creature flick that survives it all!** Crawl is different from my usual favorite stupid shark or alligator creature features because this is not a so-bad-it’s-good ridiculous movie. Instead, Crawl is a well-done creature survival thriller that creates high anxiety with claustrophobic environments filled with enraged starving alligators. Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper play a father and daughter trapped in a flooding basement in the middle of a hurricane that has become the new home of some hungry crocs. The serious tone and high quality of Crawl would be comparable to The Shallows making this an excellent film as much about survival and growth as the alligators looking for dinner. The effects, well-designed sets, and great performances make Crawl a top-notch creature feature.

The movie plot follows Hayle, who heads towards a storm in Florida to check on his father, who is not answering calls. When she gets there, her father is hurt and the house is surrounded by hungry and furious alligators. To make it worse, the storm causes a flooding and all this water just makes the hunt easier for the gators. The movie has good visual effects, but the plot armor is the most absurd one I have seen in years. Against everybody else, the gators are relentless and super-effective man-killing machines, tearing anyone in pieces before they are even able to see what is attacking them. The protagonists, however, suffer only mild scratches from gator bites that would at least result in an arm or leg being torn off. This is so frequent and so clearly absurd and unrealistic that the movie ceases to be enjoyable after a while.