Crawl

2019 • 87 minutes

About this movie

As a category 5 hurricane tears through Florida, Haley rushes to find her father, who is injured and trapped in the crawl space of their home. With the storm intensifying and water levels rising, the pair face an even more terrifying threat lurking below the surface. From producer Sam Raimi (Evil Dead) and director Alexandre Aja (The Hills Have Eyes), Crawl is a nail-biting thriller from start to finish.

Ratings and reviews

There are a handful of inaccuracies of American alligators: They don't roar before they chase or catch their prey, they don't dive down forward, they don't pursue after their prey, they don't pursue with their mouths open, they don't attack from bellow towards your feet, they are not man-eaters, they are not really ferocious, they don't attack humans frequently, they don't see directly in front of them and behind them, they don't understand the concept of glass, they don't lay their eggs underwater, their teeth are not razor sharp, they are not lizards, and their brains are not the size of peas. But, there are some true facts about gators that are in this film, like Gators can hear, alligators can sense splashing and they investigate, they death roll to tear limb from limb (but it was only shown once), The eye does shine white in the dark (but that was also shown one time), and even though it was not mentioned, gators have thousands of sensory organs called "receptors", they can detect tiny disturbances in the water. The CGI alligators are incredible to look at, they have such great detail and structure, and they move with such fluidity, and when they appear on screen, it's jaw-dropping and eye-popping. I really enjoyed the sounds in this film, from the rumbling hissing growls of alligators to the bone smashing sounds of their bite to pitter patter of rain, to sounds of banging on the strong pipes in one scene. The music score has two responsibilities: It creates a horror atmosphere that sounds sinister, unsettling, and even intense, and it creates tender touching music for the emotional bits. the jump-scares are nothing ground-breaking when it comes to horror, but remains very well executed in terms of the tone, the sound and the clever direction. speaking of direction; the direction as a whole has such great effect and it's smart because not only it creates intense uneasy terror but also creates strong timing to make it so entertaining. For a horror film, the chemistry between the Haley and Dave Keller and not to mention their dog is so powerful and is handled expertly. The characterizations for the characters are a mixed bag (does have good aspects and bad aspects), the cast delivers such wonderful acting to make this film very realistic. The production design (even though there are no basements on Florida) is very well-done in terms of the real locations and how they were set. To conclude: Crawl makes no sense at all, because of the inaccuracies, but it is a surprising, clever, interestingly fun enterprise that hits like a ton of bricks, and has solid entertaining bite to it. But Crawl is not recommended to anyone.

The movie was terrible. I mean I can see maybe young kids that are new to "scary" movies. If you can call this a scary movie. I can't. The crocodiles or alligators looked so fake. Sure it might be great CGI work but to me it all still looks fake enough to pull me out of the immersion. That uncanny valley applies to crocodiles too. And I got tired of all that swim team pep talk bs. They just shoehorned that stuff in so they could say their "be the predator" stuff in. Predator/crocodiles wooo.

Theres a few good parts, but essentially just overhyped by having Sam Raimi as a producer, perfect example of critic snobbery.. Daughters constant screaming is grating; kind of felt a disconnect from the movie with the CGI effects used. Kind of corny swim-spiration made me roll my eyes. Would give 2 1/2 stars