Crawl (2019)
DANGER! Alligators are common in this area. They can be dangerous. They have been known to stalk prey. THEY WILL HUNT YOU
Monster movie! Well, more like nature’s monster movie! Jaws made you want to stay out of the pool, and now Gators want you to stay out of their state! Upon knowing of this movie’s existence it got added to the queue - there is nothing about this concept that doesn’t strike me as a me kind of movie. I’m not saying that their couldn’t be bumps - low cast, high potential for bad effects, not really using it’s premise to the max - but we’ll see if the scales tip in the movies favor, tonight we check out Crawl.
Alternate title pitches: Gatorgeddon, Alipocalypse, or Storm of the Reptiles. Yeah, they all sound stupid and schlocky, but as much as Crawl is a fitting title, it doesn’t really catch the eye. Now, the rest of the movie does a pretty good job of catching one’s eye - just that title gets left behind. Basic premise on this one is super easy - gators versus people. Need a little more information? A big old hurricane sweeps through the state, and a daughter who goes to check on her father finds a very not friendly surprise waiting for her when she finds him. Seeking revenge for it’s family being made into purses and boots (just kidding, the gator’s are just doing what gator’s do), the duo finds themselves trapped in their old house at the mercy of a raging hurricane and an ever growing menace of big old hungry gators. Now, mind you, when I say big it’s because gators are big, although in all honesty none of these fellers are really giant like some reviews would have led me to believe. So really, there you have it at it’s core - nature versus man, with man just trying to survive.
If I had to really boil down the movie’s typing, it’d be a suspense based within that man versus nature concept. At times, that suspense can lean heavy on the horror side of things - doing an actual better job then plenty of horror movies I’ve seen. Legitimate jump scares - not the stupid fake-out friend scares or ear-harming terror strings without payoff. Yeah, you’ll see some of them coming - but some will legit just jump out of nowhere. Other times you think you’ll get that sweet spooky release, but the movie gives you the cold shoulder and just lets you simmer in the fact that you know something is about to happen even though it’s not. Arguably, as far as being a villain goes perhaps the movie falls behind with the use of the gators - not quite as memorable as something like Jason or Freddy. It’s not so much the fault of the gators - they are used closed to a conceptual normal gator - but in turn it ends up making the movie have more standout moments than the gators being a stand-out killer force. Occasionally, it might get a tad bit weird - but I’m no zoologist and I’m not about to go around sticking my hands in gator mouths or trying to use a frosted shower door to keep an ornery one at bay.
So yes, the plot is simple, but for the people who want it it does try to provide impactful characters. The key there is the word try - how emotional an attachment you get out of this is probably going to vary greatly. For me? Not so much attached - although it didn’t impact the tensions any - but I can appreciate that although it didn’t exactly hit the mark for me it was a solid attempt on building out the relationship between the two and even another character to some extent. To be honest, the most impactful character most will find to the overall tensions and anxiety of the movie is one introduced shortly in - the family dog. As soon as you see that thing you start to worry about it’s fate in a movie pitching gator attacks, and the further in you get and the higher the stakes you start getting more anxious about it - especially as the body count raises on both sides. Given the small amount of locations used during the bulk of the movie as well, it also uses the progression of it’s storm backdrop as a continual way of ramping up and twisting the threats available to the human side of things. For something that stays as simple as it starts, by the end it’s quite the extravagant road map of things that went wrong or right to get there.
The weather outside is frightful.
Audio is well done. Everything you want to hear you can hear fine, and plenty of foley helps build out the scenes. Something moving around you can’t see? Audible. That little whir of the windup flashlight? Nailed it. That constant running water that’ll make more than a few people need to use the bathroom? Couldn’t find a better movie. The fact that it’s all balanced amongst the line deliveries and music when it crops up is appreciable. Whether it’s intended or not I don’t know, but the opening music also strikes a bit of a vibe with the old Jaws build up, which is a pretty good way of immediately getting you in the mood for some man against beast terror. The rest of the movies music is there, but it’s not managing to beat out the other music that is currently infesting my dang brain memory.
Effects wise it’s pretty good. I’m not animal expert, so I can’t speak to how spot-on accurate the gators are. What I can say, is it’s a heck of a lot easier for gator hide to look a lot more believable however it’s done than a lot of the furry animals out there. I’d argue the gators look better at most times then the animals in some of the trailers I’ve seen of that “live action” Lion King movie. That said, it’s not all grade AAA effects. At times, the gator’s look pretty not right - be it just how a person is interacting with them or perhaps something to do with the lighting or how it mixes with the environment. It’s not often that it looks bad, but certainly it does at times regardless. The other part of it would largely be the violence side of things - largely the only reason this thing has a rating of R. While most of the “flesh wounds” look pretty good, it’s the deeper damage that is far more painful. The father dealing with one of the injuries he got before we the audience even met him is particularly wince-able. Considering the amount of water in the movie as well, it’s good that it all looks well done. The outside weather moments are also good to look at, with plenty of moments of believable weather chaos.
There’s not a lot of actors in here. The good news is the main two are pretty passable as far as when they are on screen. Perhaps not the best award winning performances, but certainly passable. Some of the side characters are perhaps a bit less stellar, although passable. A handful of them are actually totally disposable, having no connection to anything really outside of trying to build up the danger levels through visual demonstrations. It’s the side characters that also have probably the largest occurrence of “stupid choices.” Yeah, occasionally you’ll let loose a shout at the person on screen for deciding to not do an action after they get to safety, but for the most part the movie does a good job of guiding choices through it’s escalation. Even with it being sensible, it’s also a bit funny to see some horror tropes getting used in here - such as “going upstairs to escape a problem” when that problem is actually a good reason to go upstairs - like rising water levels. At that point, it might not even actually be considered the same trope, since it’s a logical choice - but regardless I enjoy the fact that it makes things work and plays with it’s situation without having to resort to people doing just the dumbest calls for the sake of the movie constantly.
When you flush the gator, the gator comes back.
I enjoyed this one. I actually sort of enjoyed this one a lot. It might not be the best movie ever, but it was a darn good tension filled flick for something that had a scify original movie premise. Perhaps I should have expected more from the people who did Evil Dead but honestly I didn’t. Yeah, it won’t be everyone’s movie - not everyone is in to scary, tense, or movies with some pretty rough looking injuries. Still, if you don’t mind violent injuries, a few worse for wear effect shots, you might want to check this baby out on a rental if nothing else. On the flip side of that, I might be in a bit of a minority given the less than 7 score on IMDB - but perhaps this time I’m just more capable of enjoying something for being good when it’s rather simple. It’s far from being the new Jaws, but it can crawl on it’s own four legs pretty darn well.