CRAWL Review
Where did it all go wrong? The pieces were there: a simple story about one girl (Kaya Scodelario) vs a group of gators while trapped in a hurricane (!!), produced by horror legend Sam Raimi, and directed by French gore-hound Alexandre Aja (who dabbled with evil aquatic animals with the wondrously bonkers PIRHANA 3D). I even had like two beers while watching this movie on a Friday night of all nights! Alas, despite the lineup of bullseye pieces, CRAWL lives up to its title because, sheesh, this movie is disappointingly boring.
Like previously mentioned, the story (concocted and written by Michael and Shawn Rasmussen) is more than aware of its B-movie aspirations, quickly setting up collegiate swimmer Haley’s scaly situation. See, she’s just finished up practice at the University of Florida (whose mascot is *wink wink* a gator!) and a hurricane is barreling towards the state with the wrath of all the deities. But this being a horror movie, Haley finds herself driving towards the storm in order to give her recently absent father Dave (Barry Pepper) a lift out of hurricane country. As it ends up, Haley (along with her lovable mutt) finds Dave injured at their old home just as the water begins to rise, bringing both floods and cold-blooded reptiles in its waves. So once again, CRAWL is about a girl fighting off gators and a hurricane! What a cool idea!
Or at least it would be if the film didn’t feel as cold-blooded and tank-ish as its antagonists. Where in PIRANHA 3D Aja absolutely let loose buckets of gore and childish humor with unrestrained glee, the director with this flick instead opts for a slightly more serious tone (at least, comparatively because again: girl fighting alligators in a hurricane!). Essentially a chamber piece as Haley and her injured dad cower in their house the entire film, surrounded by less than stellar hurricane effects, CRAWL seems to have its intentions aimed at drawn out tension rather than whacked out mayhem. Every scene from the moment Haley first comes into contact with the fightin’ gators hits a cyclical note of Haley hearing/seeing a glimpse of gator, waiting, then being spooked by said gator. There’s hardly ingenuity or glee or terror in these dances but to his credit Aja never lets the viewer take the material too seriously as the idea of a 500 lb. gator sneaking up on someone in a creaky house is hilarious in and of itself. Even the gator mayhem (mostly displayed in budget friendly quick cuts and rapid editing with the occasional glimpse at a wonky CGI-creation) leaves a lot to be desired as the gators kind of just thrash some hapless other victims that you don’t care about until the water turns red (how revolting!). While in the hands of any other journeyman filmmaker this would be expected, it’s a shame Aja himself (a man whose works have always delivered the violent goods) offers up such a muted visual of gator/hurricane carnage.
Nevertheless, murder by gator is still intrinsically entertaining in regards to movie content, which helps because CRAWL doesn’t have much else clicking. I’m not too experienced with Ms. Scodelario in works other than her appearance in THE MAZE RUNNER franchise, but I doubt any talented actress could enliven the character she has to work with, a figure that exists to simply move the plot along to its next action sequence and occasionally act like she has a personality beyond “really good at swimming/family issues”. Scodelario does what she can with canned dialogue but its not enough to really care how her character gets out of the situation she’s in, ditto for her patriarchal counterpart Mr. Pepper, who plays gruff well but is simply there to just impart further gruff fatherly advice to Haley. It’s two character templates grunting and fighting off gators together which would work if the gator mayhem was anything to write about but you know my thoughts on that already. Surrounding those two (and their cute dog who I must reiterate elevates this movie with some good dog acting) is ho-hum production quality as the physical sets of flooded homes and gas stations are unique but hardly ever fully pushed to their creative possibilities except in the film’s final act where gators start multiplying like Gremlins and the hurricane finally becomes noticeable.
Outside of that, CRAWL is a paint-by-the-numbers creature feature. It’s not long at all, which is nice I suppose, and some minor expected horror tropes are cheekily played with but other than that, Alexandre Aja’s film about gators and hurricanes fails to live up to its awesome scenario. We’ll always have PIRANHA 3D though.
2/5
