Crawl Review (2019) Worth Watching?

It's about a woman, her dad and a dozen giant alligators who share a crawl space during a major hurricane.

Crawl was directed by Alexandre Aja (who also directed The Hills Have Eyes reboot, Mirrors, Horns and Piranha 3D) and stars Kaya Scodelario (from Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile), Barry Pepper and Ross Anderson.

They were here first

Crawl is for the summer of '19 what Jaws was for the summer of '75. It took a somewhat threatening animal and made it nightmarish. Of course, Jaws was an epic film that dripped story and mounting tension. Crawl just gives you exactly what you want to see, killer alligators fighting people in a hurricane. It's not going after any Oscar's and it's not trying to appeal to a broad audience. You won't find any influence of recycled modern horror here. If you want to see some monster alligators hunting people during a hurricane, than you've come to the right movie.

Crawl was a blast to watch. You go into it knowing what to expect, but there's still so much going on that you just don't expect. For one, it's surprisingly realistic for all intents and purposes. The alligators themselves are of course exaggerated, but nothing else really is. The lead character, Haley, is from Florida so she's unusually calm throughout the hurricane. Most movies have people running around screaming when there's a huge storm landing, Haley really keeps a level head. The storm itself felt realistic as did the decisions made by all of the characters. Even the CGI was surprisingly good, it didn't distract from the action whatsoever (I'm still trying to forget the CGI we were all painfully subjected to in Lake Placid 3).

This fairly realistic portrayal contrasted well with the shocking gore that I definitely didn't expect (although I should have considering the other movies director Alexandre Aja worked on, ever seen High Tension?) I expected to see some torn up limbs and bloody water, but Crawl goes WAY beyond that level of child's play.

Another aspect of Crawl that I loved is that everything this father and daughter try fails miserably. They have so many good ideas for escape that other movies would have let them get away with. Not crawl. Other movies build suspense by showing people trying something really dangerous in order to survive. Crawl builds suspense by showing dangerous attempt after an even more dangerous attempt all falling apart, leaving the characters in an even worse position than they were in before.

I really wish more animal attack horror movies were like Crawl.

Worth Watching?

If you're looking for a fun action packed horror movie that actually delivers more gore than plot holes, than definitely watch Crawl, and in the theaters if it's still showing.