Crawl

So here it goes. The big Hollywood pitch!

You’re trapped in a house with blood-thirsty alligators during a hurricane in Florida, near the coastline and next to a breached levee.

Pure Gold. That’s a go project.

Not sure it quite went down like that but yeah, there’s not much at all to Crawl. It is what it is and stays true to most standard horror formulas known to viewers. You’re trapped in a house with a (insert type of monster here) and all you’re trying to do is survive.

Simple enough to peak the interest of film audiences time and time again being that it evokes one of the strongest and primitavie human emotions we have… Fear.

However, it’s more complicated than that if you’re trying to make a good horror film, which should include plot and storyline to heighten the stakes and make you become more emotionally invested in the plight of these characters.  Waiting out a Cat 5 hurricane seemed a bit too much ‘what if ” this and this happened lack of creativity for me.

Although acted well enough by Kaya Scodelario (Haley) and Barry Pepper (Dave), the daughter/father duo at the center of the film, the development of Crawl lacked a bit of imagination as these alligators were somehow in the crawl space under this Florida home before the hurricane approached and once the waters started to rise they all just decided to hang out in this flooded cul-de-sac and maul but not eat everything that moved.

I’m not a biologist but something about those alligators’ predatorily behaviors seemed a bit off. Like Haley offended one of the mama gators by saying her baby was ugly or something. It felt like these gators had a personal vendetta with these people.

There’s a bit of absurdity here with a slight sprinkle of Sharknado and Lake Placid mixed in rather than really good stuck-in-a-house with a monster films such as Don’t Breathe or Hush. But as viewers we do know what we’re getting into prior to and so this monster happens to be aggressive CGI alligators.

I’m not saying the film was bad but it just left me wanting a bit more to even out the edges. And to his credit director Alexandre Aja (Piranha 3D, The Hills have Eyes) did a great job of keeping the tension of the film incredibly high throughout.

As a viewer I rarely felt at ease, whether it be in the crawl space below the house or within the flooded streets you always had a feeling that one of these reptiles was watching, waiting to leap from the waters and take with it an arm, leg or head.

Seriously, half way through the film I thought  why am I putting myself through this?  It’s torture. Let these people have a chance. Let them out. Let them live!

Hmmm… but if Crawl did that and took me to that place of heighten suspense throughout then maybe it wasn’t that bad a film after all.

Hopefully you have a sturdier resting heart rate than myself.