Crawl (2019)
June 22, 2020 7:07 PM - Subscribe

A young woman, while attempting to save her father during a category 5 hurricane, finds herself trapped in a flooding house and must fight for her life against alligators.

Very spoilery trailer—do not watch if you don't want some shocking developments spoiled

Currently streaming on Hulu and Amazon Prime

Move over, Jaws clones—Crawl is here to claim the summer movie season for the reptiles (AV Club): Produced by Evil Dead honcho Sam Raimi, Crawl is dumb genre fun, but it’s not too dumb. The gators, convincingly summoned from the digital gene pool, are perhaps cunning even by the standards of this sneak-attack species—they know just when to hold their hisses and growls for a well-timed jump scare. But they’re not too big or too unstoppable or too intelligent; you wouldn’t confuse them for escapees from the Deep Blue Sea laboratory. The humans, meanwhile, don’t make blatantly stupid decisions just to move the plot along or thrust themselves into further danger.

Crawl Is a Vicious, Near-Perfect Summer Thrill (Vulture): Crawl is a great example of a simple story exceedingly well-told. It’s a bloody adventure full of teeth-gnawing turns of fortune, mordant wit, vicious gator kills, and surprising tenderness — that clocks in at a blessedly fleet 87 minutes. It’s a perfect horror film for the summer, as much an ode to the cataclysmic, humbling aspects of Mother Nature as it is a love letter to father-daughter relationships. The latter dynamic provides the film’s tender through line, keeping us invested in the survival of the only main characters in the movie. Some of the most fun I’ve had in the theater this summer was watching Haley navigate creature-infested waters, balance trepidatiously on the sink as the waters rise, or with teary-eyed regret create a tourniquet for her gnawed thigh.

‘Crawl’ Review: See You Later, Alligators (Rolling Stone): It’s really up to [lead actors] Scodelario and Pepper to keep things moving, especially the former, and luckily for us, she proves to be a great scream-queen-in-training. Survivalist horror heroines have to simultaneously be vulnerable and steely — think Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley in Alien, or Blake Lively’s shark-battling surfer in The Shallows — and the British actor is more than capable of holding the film on her broad shoulders while balancing both sides. She may have just found her niche.
posted by ejs (7 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I just watched this, and I enjoyed it a lot. I laughed out loud at some of the ramping up of the danger in the last act. The trouble really never stops increasing.
It's certainly not the worst flood movie I've seen.

And don't worry; the dog lives!
posted by Mister Moofoo at 2:18 AM on June 24, 2020 [3 favorites]


Yep, the dog lives, but.... I rank that scene with the little canine appetizer in Bait 3D (2012), another "saved from the jaws of death" killer animal film. Or the plucky but slightly scorched pup in Dante's Peak (1997).
It was worth the price of admission. The movie clearly missed the opportunity for a trifecta of hurricane/tornado/tsunami, although the main characters took a wild ride at one point. At least we didn't have one clearly unique reptile showcased as the Last Killer Gator in the final scene.
posted by TrishaU at 7:55 AM on June 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


Surprisingly okay, I just watched this tonight. I actually came in a short while after it started, and said 'Is that guy wearing a Guild of Calamitous Intent shirt?' (spoiler, he isn't, but I stuck around to watch and was amused). The gator CG is impressively well done, there's a decent heap of mangled limbs, Chekov's Swarm of Baby Gators is never quite resolved, but all in all I'd give it an 8/10 on a scale that only contains movies of people getting hassled by angry animals.
posted by FatherDagon at 10:57 PM on June 25, 2020 [3 favorites]


I thought this was an absolutely terrible movie. Hilariously so. Best enjoyed while drunk and shouting at the screen.
posted by Anonymous at 5:58 PM on June 27, 2020 [1 favorite]


I enjoyed this and thought it was much better made than it needed to be. I especially enjoyed the external sets and storm effects, which were beautifully lit (possibly with CGI lighting?) and had an almost Night of the Hunter quality.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 4:34 PM on June 29, 2020 [2 favorites]


More well-crafted creature features like this need to be made. Apparently, Tarantino has said this was his favorite movie of 2019, and somehow I think I get that sentiment completely.

Also Barry Pepper is freaking hot - total DILF.
posted by edithkeeler at 3:47 PM on July 21, 2020


I'm with Anonymous - I thought it was awful. Can't see what the rest of you (let alone Tarantino) saw in it.
posted by Paul Slade at 2:38 PM on July 14, 2022


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