Man, if it ain’t sharks in a tornado it’s alligators in a hurricane. Alexander Aja’s Crawl is a million times better monster movie than Sharknado though, the buzz surrounding it peaked with Quentin Tarantino claiming it as his favourite film of 2019 and it definitely lived up to the hype. It’s a no frills creature feature in the sense that it arrives to get down to business, gets down to that business with ruthless efficiency and the slack pulled razor taut and then exits as soon as it showed up, kind of like the hurricane it’s set in. The storm descends upon Florida just as professional swimmer Haley (Kaya Scodelario) is searching for her dad (Barry Pepper, always awesome) in a neighbourhood that’s about to get hit bad. He’s been attacked by vicious hungry gators while patching up the crawl space and now they’re both trapped down there, with the winds outside, the water rising dangerously all around them and the beasts chomping at their every move. Oh yeah and they’re both severely injured too. It’s a wicked awesome setup and Aja makes good use of it, the gators look pretty damn photorealistic for CGI, the suspense lays on thick as fuck, the surrounding storm makes wonderfully cacophonous atmospheric textures and the gore is just this side of realistic enough to be uncomfortable and just bloody enough to ding the horror genre barometer. I also really appreciated both the acting and writing in our central father daughter relationship, I believed these two were family, cared for them and actually legit tensed up a few times when they almost get eaten alive. This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you make a great horror movie.
-Nate Hill
Podcasting Them Softly 