Crawl

Crawl has a nice digital setting and, in the second half, a decent build-up of suspense and unpredictable use of the limited stage. Given the seemingly transparent plot that involves a skillful swimmer and her relationship with her father that needs to be healed, it turned out to be quite a profoundly written and directed survival-horror movie. It’s a half-star more enjoyable than the similarly themed The Shallows. (27/08/2019)

Easygoing, animal attack summer nonsense. An alligator survival taking place during a category-5 hurricane looks good on paper, especially with Aja behind the cameras a Raimi as producer. That would be, of course, if these gentlemen had taken it with more darkness and horror. Crawl, unfortunately, doesn’t have much balls, which is surprising given Aja’s history. The gore is missing, everything is hidden either in the dark or behind curtains of splashing water. The alligators sometimes look a bit artificial, but not much. What is horrifying, though, are the dialogues between the father and the daughter. Brr! (11/07/2019)

Crawl gave me exactly what I expected from a horror about alligators, and maybe Alexandre Aja even slightly surpassed my expectations, because he created a really entertaining and action packed survival movie in which there is always something happening. In terms of the screenplay, it is not all that great, but whoever went through the filmography of the Rasmussen brothers in advance would not have been able to expect anything else, and if anyone had pointed out that most of the supporting characters in the movie are just there to be killed off, they would have been right, yet it simply does its job as an entertaining summer horror movie. It met my expectations as a great movie to wash away the stress of everyday life. After Piranha 3D, Aja was again able to make the most of the trashy subject matter and create solid and exciting entertainment. Also, having such a striking song over the end credits has been missing in the movies for a long time. (19/07/2019)

A suspenseful horror film about two heroes who find themselves trapped in a basement with hungry alligators during a hurricane. Clever and interesting characters, well built tension and some pretty gritty scenes make Crawl a very fine genre entertainment. Too bad it turns from horror to action B-movie at the end. (13/07/2019)

A bland feeding of deadly predators that won’t offend any connoisseur of the genre, but may cause some harmless grumble in their bellies if they think about Alexandre Aja’s early and very uncompromising stuff. Piranha 3D, albeit a colossal insanity, was a lot more fun and bold as a movie. Crawl sticks to its characters and manages to bring the viewer close, but it’s unable to sell the threat of the alligator in a naturalistic or tense enough way. But it’s a fine flick nevertheless, with pretty good actors and a good director that used to be great, which in this case is a real shame. (14/10/2019)