I’m a sucker for simple clock-ticking premises. There’s a terrible situation that the characters are in, and the entire movie is them trying to get out of it using their wits. Throw a monster in there and you got yourself a classic entertaining B-movie, where you’re in it for the thrills and not much else. Set yourself that expectation, and you should enjoy the hell out of Crawl, because I sure did.
Simple Exercise in Murphy’s Law
I don’t just love simple movies – I love when they remain simple from start to finish. There’s no twist or plot digression, where the story is trying to be something more than its premise. Crawl doesn’t try to be deep and meaningful. It’s an 87-minute long movie about female swimmer Haley (Kaya Scodelario) attempting to save her father (Barry Pepper) from a Category 5 hurricane and a swarm of hungry alligators. I want nothing more out of it. Just give me suspense, gory effects, and some moments of human drama so I can be emotionally invested in them making it out alive.
Director Alexandre Aja and producer Sam Raimi not only deliver on that simple promise, but they take one step further in maintaining a narrative where the stakes change over time. If you don’t personify the alligators, for the sake of argument, Crawl is a movie with no villain. How it finds conflict is it presents the characters with a wide array of problems to solve. The end result is an engaging and entertaining exercise in Murphy’s Law – Gravity but with gators. It’s a movie that not only runs at the perfect pace and perfect length, but it also keeps itself interesting. There’s never a sense of repetition, frankly because every possible situation gets played out in front of us.
So Much Pain, Cringe, and Nail-biting
With Raimi’s experience in the Evil Dead films and Aja’s campy style in Piranha 3D, Crawl would not hesitate to make you cringe in your seat. You will see every injury down to its last detail, and Scodelario and Pepper are more than up to the task in selling that pain. Though the makeup and practical effects were used a bit sparingly, their brief appearances offer the necessary gruesome details for an alligator bite.
If you can stomach the bloody injuries and the cringe-inducing sound effects of blood squirting and bone cracking, I’d recommend watching this in a packed theater. You’d be surprised as to how much fun you’ll have. The experience was similar to the opening night of the 2013 Evil Dead remake – the whole theater (including myself) was groaning over the gore effects and we had the time of our lives.
B-Movie Drama and CGI
Where Crawl occasionally falters is in its writing and CGI effects. Scodelario and Pepper play alongside one another well, where their character drama is just enough for me to understand their emotional and physical circumstances. That being said, everything outside of Haley and her dad is not really necessary to spend time on. The script somehow feels inclined to include an older sister character to interact with Haley in the first act – it doesn’t really go anywhere and the dialogue is obviously used to serve exposition on Haley’s history with her dad.
In addition to moments of contrived dialogue, Crawl has a few moments that overly rely on CGI instead of practical effects. A few shots here and there are so up close to the alligator, it wouldn’t hurt to just build a physical animatronic head that moves around – kind of like that crocodile head Robin Williams held onto in Jumanji. Unfortunately, like most movies do nowadays, Crawl takes the easy route, and a couple shots don’t hide it well. Look out for the first interaction between Scodelario and an alligator. That is one weightless alligator.
Crawl: Worth Eating Up
Crawl certainly has the tropes of a B-movie. The dialogue is not that great, there are some familiar clichés that only serve a body count, and the CGI is occasionally wonky. That being said, Aja directs the hell out of it. There’s a precise sense of continuous urgency throughout, Scodelario gives an extremely committed performance, and the gator kills are gnarly.
It’s the quintessential man vs. nature thriller condensed into a tight 87 minutes, and I ate it all up. Sometimes simple is all you need to make a fun movie. We need more simple movies like Crawl.
Did you see Crawl? What did you think of the film? Let us know in the comments below!
Crawl was released in theaters in the US on July 12, 2019. For all international release dates, click here.
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