MPAA Rating: R/Genre: Natural Horror/Stars: Kaya Scodelario, Barry Pepper, Morfydd Clark, Ross Anderson, Jose Palma, George Somner, Anson Boon, Ami Metcalf, Colin McFarlane/Runtime: 87 minutes
I think it is safe to say that if you made a list of places that would be perfect to set a horror film in, there is one place that should definitely make the list. That place would be none other than the state of Florida here in the United States and frankly can you really blame me for thinking this dear reader? I mean the swamps are full of creepy critters, the humidity is excruciating at best and terrible at worst, the weather has the potential to turn your backyard into an Olympic-size swimming pool without warning, the various theme parks are constantly packed to the brim to say nothing of always having rides break down, and the people who reside there often show that they are more than capable of engaging in some of the most twisted stuff that ever appears in the news on a daily basis. I mean this doesn’t sound like a state where people live and/or visit. Rather, it sounds like a trap from a Saw movie that is continuously being used in one form or another. Suffice it to say then that it should come as no surprise then to learn that in the long-ago year of 2019, film helmer Alexandre Aja decided to give us as movie goers a cinematic concoction that managed to combine an estranged father-daughter unit trying to survive against all odds and at least a trinity of the aforementioned elements into a single slice of cinema. The end result was a little slice of horror cinema, and movie I am reviewing for you today incidentally, known as Crawl. Indeed is this slice of cinema the say-all, end-all for its respective genre? Not really, but then again I don’t really see anything ever topping JAWS in that regard. I mean not only do I really feel like this movie could have been longer than it was (or at least included an epilogue of some kind), but the majority of the support cast in this are only here to operate more or less as raving idiots/lunch for the hungry alligators and our two main characters don’t really act like people caught in this situation would. At the same time though, is this slice of cinema a total washout? Oh heck no! Not even close. Indeed Crawl might not be a flawless film by any stretch of the imagination, but as a fairly frightening and taut slice of cinema about blood-thirsty creatures mowing through people in the midst of a fierce storm this is one movie that, with the aid of competent work on both sides of the camera, proves to be a delightful little surprise in every sense of the word.
The plot is as follows: Crawl gets its thrilling narrative underway by taking us to the University of Florida (if you know the mascot for the school then you know the irony) where we quickly meet and become acquainted with our heroine, a skilled to some degree or another member of that distinct group known as competitive swimmers by the name of Haley. Haley, we soon see, has just barely missed matching the best time at her meet and so isn’t in the best of moods when we find her. Unfortunately for her, things are about to get worse. This is because we soon see her receive a phone call from her sister who tells her two things of note. Those being that that not only is there a massive and brutal Category 5-level hurricane heading directly in her direction that she should try to bunker down and ride out (this IS Florida though so that shouldn’t be too surprising), but even worse she has tried reaching out to their dad Dave, who Haley has quite the estrangement from, and he hasn’t been responding to any of her calls. We soon see that, rather than seek shelter, Haley decides to do the exact opposite and head straight into the heart of this vicious storm to her hometown to try and locate Daddy dearest and ensure that he is doing ok and that nothing bad has happened to him. Now normally this would eventually culminate in the daughter walking in the house, yelling for her dad, he would come running down the stairs, they would have a reconciliation set to a moving score, and then they would get out of town and go get pancakes together (or something to that effect). With that being said though, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to learn that this isn’t that kind of movie. Instead, this is the kind of movie where our main heroine makes her way through the weather-assailed home, eventually finds her passed out dad under the crawl space, and is in the process of getting him up the steps….only to quickly and horrifically come under attack from no less a trio of giant and particularly hungry for people alligators. Thus can Haley and her father put their differences aside in order to find a way to survive to say nothing of reform a bond as father and daughter or are they about to become a main course at Café de Hurricane for their highly unwelcome (to say nothing of scaly) guests? That I will leave you to discover for yourself dear reader……
Now right off the ol’ bat (or is it the ol’ gator?), it should be noted that this slice of cinema’s helmer, one Alexandre Aja, has skill with peril in water cinema before taking this on. Indeed this is a guy who back in 2010 gifted the world with a fun and extremely visceral remake of the cult classic Piranha which saw a group of people in a lakeside Arizona community going to war with a group of toothy and carnivorous fish over Spring Break. To be sure this slice of cinema doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to visceral content either, chalk it up to what happens when you leave a part of the body vulnerable to being chomped on, but by no means is this one as comical as its predecessor as we see that this is more in the vein of a lean and mean survival thriller. As a result, not only does this movie hit the ground running (or swimming I should say), but the thin narrative here also operates as a collection of tasks for the main characters to complete. To that end we see that, although there isn’t a whole lot of it in this film, space becomes a defining characteristic in this slice of cinema’s core conflict of man vs. gator. Yes our two main characters might be reduced to having to do a limbo-style crouch for most of the movie, but we also see that the lack of space is also able to save them just as much as hinder them in their attempts to survive. We also see that this slice of cinema does a great job at not only creating its reptilian antagonists, but also at making them act like more realistic creatures than say the shark from Deep Blue Sea. Along with that, I am also pleased to note that our two human leads might get their fair share of wounds in this, but at least they don’t make ridiculous choices that might propel the narrative forward, but darn it if they don’t make you want to yell at the screen in exasperation. Of course, for those of you hoping to see the gators make lunch meat out of some of these people, you will be happy (?) to know that this slice of cinema does supply a fair amount of expendable individuals for the gators to chow down on including a trinity of thieves who become part of a thrilling moment that permits the director and his team to do a darn near masterful job of tinkering with both distance as well as things happening in the background in a way that is delightfully sneaky. Ultimately though, if there is a component behind the camera that keeps this slice of cinema form achieving genuine B-movie greatness, it would be the human drama on display. I say this because the script that this movie is operating with manages to interpret Haley and her father’s battle for survival as less combat against a trinity of hungry gators and more about the gators symbolically helping them fix the fractured bond which exists between them. To be sure, it is completely run of the mill and eye-rolling if I’m being honest, but the same could also be said for the emotional motives at the hearts of some of the other more recent entries in this distinct subgenre of movie magic thus showing us that there truly is no creature of the deep anywhere near as brutal as the anguished family unit backstory. Suffice it to say therefore that with the work behind the camera this slice of cinema might be dumb fun, but thankfully it’s more the latter than the former.
Of course, for a slice of cinema like this one to work on the level that it ultimately aspires to, it certainly wouldn’t hurt it in the least if the cast in front of the camera found itself able to give fairly good performances. In that regard, I can safely say that this slice of cinema is more or less successful on that front. To be sure, 99% of the support cast does seem to exist solely for the purpose of being lunch and/or dinner for the hungry and extremely vicious gators in this film, but at the very least the pair of main performances at the heart of this film do make up for that extremely well. This starts with Kaya Scodelario and she is fantastic. Indeed in the role of Haley, Scodelario brings a ferocity and strength to be sure, but also a bit of very-much welcome vulnerability as well. A vulnerability incidentally that can be attributed to the fact that she does care about her dad despite how she might act on the outside, but they also have a fair amount of baggage that exists between them as well. Yes, there are things that this character does throughout that might make you raise an eyebrow due to how incredulous they are including, but not limited to, swimming fairly quickly despite having a tourniquet on her leg and swimming without goggles on in what is sure to be sewage-filled swamp waters. Even with those and a few other examples in mind though, there is no denying that this is still a fairly good performance from Scodelario and proof that with the right material (in other words NOT Pirates of the Caribbean 5) she can be a talent to be reckoned with. Working in tandem with her here (even if it takes him about 10-15 minutes to show up in this) is iconic character actor Barry Pepper in the role of Haley’s dear ol’ dad Dave. Indeed be it Saving Private Ryan, 2010’s take on True Grit, Flags of our Fathers, or even his iconic turn as Jonnie ‘Goodboy’ Tyler in the sci-fi masterpiece Battlefield Earth (I kid, I kid) Pepper has always been a wonderful addition to every slice of cinema he has been a part of and that is definitely the case here as well. Yes his character might not be constructed as well as that of the part played by Scodelario, but Pepper nevertheless does a great job at playing this guy who might be a bit rough around the edges and more of a tough-love kind of guy, but who also does unconditionally love his daughter and, despite the issues between them, just wants her to be the best because he knows she is more than capable of being that and so much more. Suffice it to say that the work given by the two leads here does more than enough to keep this slice of cinema afloat.
All in all and at the end of the day dear reader there are typically a trinity of basic movie types out there for audience consumption on a fairly regular basis. The first is movies that look good and turn out to be good, the second is movies that look good yet turn out to be bad, and the third is movies that look bad and turn out to be exactly that. With that in mind though, there is also a rare 4th category that doesn’t really get mentioned as often as it should. That being a slice of cinema that you have no idea what in the world to expect in terms of its overall quality and yet it manages to be a delightful little surprise. The reason I bring this 4th category up to you dear reader is because I think we can most assuredly put Crawl in that category. To be sure, this slice of cinema is by no means a perfect movie, but the truth is that I definitely don’t think this movie ever was one that aspired to be that. Instead, I think it just was one that strived to be a fun, lean, mean, and visceral little popcorn creature feature and in that regard, it is most assuredly an unmitigated success. Suffice it to say then that when you factor in fairly competent work from both behind and especially in front of the camera, there can be no denying that Crawl is definitely one movie that has a fair amount of bite to it to say nothing of being a film that is sure to be a quick and easy rainy-day favorite for creature feature fans to make their way through for years to come. Make of that what thou will dear reader. On a scale of 1-5 I give Crawl “2019” a solid 3.5 out of 5.
