Written by Tom Moore
The horror genre has offered viewers plenty of animals to fear when we step outside of our doors. Sharks, spiders, anacondas, sharknados (I think those count), and, yes, even alligators have been just some of the creatures that have made their marks in the genre. Focusing on just on the latter, though, gators have a special place in the genre, but outside of films like the Lake Placid series, gators haven’t had as big of a chance to wreak havoc on-screen. Until now. Best known for High Tension and the 2006 remake of The Hills Have Eyes, director Alexandre Aja lets the reptilian beast loose on a father and daughter attempting to escape a deadly hurricane in his newest film, Crawl, a film that’s pure summer horror fun and hard to pass up.
The film’s premise follows Haley (Kaya Scodelario), a college swimmer, who goes back to her family home to rescue her father, Dave (Barry Pepper), before a Category 5 hurricane tears through Florida. Once she arrives, she realizes that her father is severely injured and that they’re not alone in the tight crawl space under the house. Haley sees that the storm has displaced some of the alligators into the neighborhood and they’re blood hungry. To make matters worse, the devastating storm is beginning to flood the house, so Haley must find a way for her and her father to escape before they become gator chow.
Now, it’s easy to write off Crawl as a dumb disaster horror flick and in some ways, it kind of is. It definitely has the “anything that can go wrong, will” syndrome that many disaster movies have, and it can lead characters to make illogical choices. For the most part, Haley and Dave make smart choices in order to survive and are shown to be completely capable—especially Haley. She’s a strong swimmer and her and Dave have a strong knowledge of their old house, so they end up being more than worthy opponents for these gators, but I’d be lying if I didn’t recognize a moment or two where they are forced to make decisions so that the plot can continue.
Even with these lapses in logic, though, these characters and their relationship are elevated thanks to strong performances from Scodelario and Pepper. It’s pretty rare to see a father/daughter relationship in horror, so it’s quite refreshing to see it here, as these two have solid chemistry. The story behind their troubled relationship isn’t anything special, but Scodelario and Pepper make it special through some comedic quips and the strong sense of care they share for one another. It makes every moment that they’re in danger a little more suspenseful because you actually care for.
Aja’s direction also elevates the film, as his framing and suspense-building continually improve upon the simple material he is given. When filming in the crawl space, everything tightly fits within the frame and it creates a sense of claustrophobia—especially when the water begins to pour in. Aja also does a great job spreading his scares out and using quiet moments to make audiences feel comfortable only to shock them just a few moments later. I also liked how Aja used things other than the gators, like spiders or the flooding water, to build suspense and create more issues for Haley and Dave. Aja has a great shot when Haley first arrives at the house where he shows a height chart carved into a wall from when she was a child, and he cuts back to it later in the film to show how high the water is now. You can tell that Aja is giving Crawl a sense of style and it makes the viewing experience feel like something more than just run-of-the-mill.
Even the way the gators are depicted is kind of interesting, as Aja uses gore and sound effects to build up the gators’ presence. Crawl is surprisingly gory, and the use of broken bones and blood creates a sense of intimidation around the gators. The design of the gators isn’t anything crazy because, well, they’re just gators, but seeing the kind of carnage they can create and the way they whip around anything in their grasp made them a much scarier foe. Not to mention, the gore also looks great and seeing Dave have to fix his broken leg had me cringing and could cause squeamish viewers to cover their eyes in terror. Aja also uses more sound effects to create a suspenseful world. From the water dripping to having the tail of the gators drag along the pipes, viewers will be sucked into the environment and feel more suspense through both the characters and the sounds they hear around them.
Crawl also has a nice comedic and self-aware element to it that’s greatly used between all of the scares. Honestly, the film’s opening actually made me chuckle when I realized that the mascot for Haley’s college is the Florida Gators. There are small jokes like this found throughout the film and I appreciated the self-awareness, as it leads to some great visual jokes. Even the relationship between Haley and Dave can be humorous and is just a nice way for viewers to connect to and care for them. There’s even a song used at the end that got everyone in my theater to chuckle and it showed how effective the humor was for the film overall.
While the film doesn’t fully shake its formulaic moments, I think viewers looking for a tight, suspenseful, and overall fun summer horror flick will find exactly what they’re looking for with Crawl. It’ll easily please both horror fans and those who want to just have fun at the movies and is the kind of film that’s fun with a big crowd.
