Crawl Review (2019)

My History With the Film:
I saw Crawl advertise in early 2019 and it quickly became one of the movies I most wanted to see in 2019. But, life got in the way and I never made it to the theater. I planned on renting it from the Redbox once it was released but a .99 cent rental sale on iTunes caught my eye first and so Brandy and I sat down and watched Crawl in March 2020.

What The Film Is About (Non-Spoiler):
A woman attempting to save her father during a hurricane gets trapped in the flooded house with alligators.

What I Liked About It:
-The trailer, the poster, and the synopsis pretty much tell you everything you need to know about this film. It’s not going to have Academy Award winning performances nor is it going to pretend to. No, this is a straight up creature horror film and it embraces that 100%. I love it when a movie is just a movie and doesn’t make any excuses for being what it is. Then again, Crawl was directed by the same guy who did Piranha 3D, so you shouldn’t be surprised.

-The two leads were fantastic in their roles. I’ve never been the biggest Barry Pepper fan, but he portrays a realistic father, who has issues but loves his daughter dearly. I was impressed by how the script and performances actually made me care for the two leads, because this is the type of movie where emotional investment is not required. With that being said, the film was enriched by the connection and chemistry between the two leads.

-The CGI was better than expected. Of course, this type of movie is going to feature CGI alligators and I think they did a great job with them. I also was impressed by the hurricane graphics and the actual flooded sets. I felt immersed the entire time and there was no scene that pulled me out of the film because it looked like a bad video game.

-The movie did an excellent job of giving the audiences enough deaths to keep the story rolling along and by add gore to keep the stakes high.

What I Didn’t Like About It:
-Honestly, I don’t have anything bad to say about Crawl.

Additional Notes:
-The two leads Dave (Barry Pepper) and Hayley (Kaya Scodelario) also starred in two of Maze Runner movies together.

-Dave’s truck license plate is MATT 725. Matthew 7:25 states, “The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against the house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.”

-Hayley was on the Florida Gators swimming team.

Rating:

Crawl was a very enjoyable ride and I liked it more than I expected. The film doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, but it was refreshing because it took itself seriously. Most of our creature features tend to go in tongue in cheek (Sharknado, the Piranha remake) but Crawl is a serious film and I liked it because of that.

Crawl isn’t a film I see myself revisiting year after year, but I highly recommend it as a rental. I rate Crawl four stars out of five.