Crawl Review

Here's a movie that was barely on my radar entering the summer. Looking at my Excel charts that have all my summer predictions that I made back in April, I only pegged "Crawl" for a $3 million domestic total. Not that many of my predictions for the summer have been very accurate this time around, but I have no idea what I was thinking there. I think I was looking at "Hurricane Heist" as a comparison, but even that made $6.1 million total domestically. Luckily I was a little more aware of this when it came to my July movie preview, wherein I pointed out potential comparisons such as "47 Meters Down" ($11.2 million opening), "The Shallows" ($16.8 million opening) and "Geostorm" ($13.7 million opening). That general range is exactly where "Crawl" landed, getting a hair over $12 million this past weekend, suggesting a run that could hit $40 million total, depending on how well it holds. "47 Meters Down," it's closest comparison, finished with $44.7 million domesitcally. Given it's shockingly strong reviews, I think it could hit that. Said strong reviews are actually what got me out to see this. It's current Rotten Tomatoes score is 85 percent after 101 reviews, which probably even surprised Paramount given that they decided not to screen this for critics.

If you're done with me talking about numbers, I suppose I'll start talking about the movie itself. The thing is, this movie is so simple that there's not much to say, so numbers are a good supplement. But anywho, if you are one who doesn't follow the release schedule as closely as I do, "Crawl" fits perfectly into our terror in the water subgenre of horror, which is quite popular of late. Shark movies, of course, have been popular since "Jaws" in the 70's, but there has been a re-invigoration of this of late with "The Shallows" in 2016, "47 Meters Down" in 2017 and "The Meg" in 2018. "The Meg" is a movie that absolutely exploded last summer with a $45.4 million opening and a $145.4 million domestic total. Not to mention it also did a total of $530 million worldwide. So don't expect this to slow down anytime soon. In fact, we have a second one this summer with "47 Meters Down: Uncaged" opening in August. But "Crawl" is not sharks. It's alligators. That's why I have to be slightly more generic by saying terror in the water rather than shark movie. But "Crawl" is not just alligators attacking people. It's alligators attacking people during a category 5 hurricane, which is a hilariously insane premise, which is why I think my mind initially jumped to "Hurricane Heist."

Specifically with this premise, Haley has been a swimmer her whole life. Right now she is a swimmer for the Florida Gators (haha, this movie is clever, right?). Upon finishing one swimming practice, Haley's sister Beth calls her and wants to know where Dad is. Haley doesn't know because her and Dad aren't on the best of terms. Granted, Dad was the person responsible for pushing her so hard to excel in swimming, but adulting happened and family drama ensued. But given that a category 5 hurricane is about to hit, Haley decides that she is going to be a decent human and figure out where Dad is because answering phone calls he is not. Haley figures out he must be at their childhood home, but city people won't let Haley drive there. She ignores them and drives through anyways, which is a good thing because she finds Dad unconscious at the basement of their home and is about to drag him to safety when... alligators. Because, you know, swarms of alligators are always hanging out during hurricanes in Florida, waiting to eat everyone who didn't heed the evacuation mandates. And said alligators are certainly not going to let you escape to the top of the house so you can wave down the rescue helicopters. 

That there is our movie. But lest you think I summarized the entire plot, I really just summarized the opening act. The rest of the movie is really just a short 87 minute film where Haley and Dad try to escape the alligators. The movie is essentially split into "levels," which include different parts of the house. Because, logically speaking, the second you escape one part of the house, the water is going to rise and the gators are going to invade that part of the house, too. The simplicity of this film, both in concept and in run time is what makes this an effective film. The plot may seem a bit absurd, but the specific story here is quite simple. Escape the alligators before they eat you. And the movie doesn't overstay its welcome. No dull moments. No fluff. Not a whole lot of characters. It's short and to the point. And also extremely tense. No, this is not a "Sharknado" style film that is purposely bad, made to get you to laugh as loud and often as possible with your group of friends. Rather, this movie is one that takes itself very seriously, leaving you on the edge of your seat the entire time. It tries to go for the "Jaws" style of horror movie and does a pretty good job at it. While "Jaws" made people not want to swim in the water, "Crawl" made me want to avoid Florida like the plague.

The obvious thing that makes this work so well is the alligators themselves. Now I don't know a whole lot of about the nature of alligators. I don't know if they're the type of creature that groups together and attacks anything that's in their path. I don't know if they try to trap their potential food and hunt them down or if they would eventually get bored and swim away. I don't even know the statistics about alligator attacks on humans. What I do know is that this movie used them effectively. They don't feel crazy and exaggerated. They feel like normal, carnivorous animals that just happen to be in the same enclosed space as a couple of humans. This is also not a jump scare fest or a gore fest. A lot of the tension comes in just knowing that they're there, lurking in the waters or hiding in the shadows. Haley initially crawls around to find Dad and we see an alligator crawling in the distance, but she doesn't. The alligator doesn't even show up at the moment to attack them or her, but the fact that we saw it and she didn't, makes this very nerve-wracking. Then she ends up in the wrong place and the wrong time and there they are. The build up to these moments are done so effectively that when the alligators are actually chasing them down or dragging them, it's terrifying.

The other thing that makes this work is that the movie makes you care about these two characters. Haley is a very likable girl played very well by Kaya Scodelario, who is most well known for her role in the Maze Runner movies, as well as that final Pirates of the Caribbean movie that most people outside myself ended up skipping. She didn't necessarily jump out at me in those movies, but she doesn't very well in this one. The tension between her and Dad is very real. You can feel the drama between the two of them in the way they bounce off each other with their interactions without the movie having to dump too much background and exposition on you. But yet you also feel the relationship between father and daughter. Despite their disagreements, they still care about each other and want the other to escape. When things feel hopeless with the alligator situation, that's where the emotion is at its highest. And yes, Dad does have a name. His name is Dave and he's played by Barry Pepper. He does a great job of selling this emotionally conflicted character. Just by the way he talks and carries himself, you can tell that he's been through a lot. Because of this interaction, you genuinely hope they make it out alive.

Any concerns I had about the movie can be resolved by reminding myself that I'm watching a movie about alligators attacking during a category 5 hurricane. There's no reason to be super nitpicky about this one. I could complain that Haley and Dave really shouldn't be capable of walking by the end of this movie or that they are somehow able to survive a lot better than the sacrificial offerings that show up to quickly get eaten by alligators. But if our main characters both got eaten in the first 20 minutes, that would be a pretty anticlimactic horror film. So I'm fine with things being a bit easy at times for them so that we can have a feature-length film that remains tense the whole way through. There's probably plenty of other things that could be pointed out as well, but when push comes to shove, if you paid money to see this in theaters, you paid knowing that you bought tickets to a movie about alligators hunting people in a category 5 hurricane. It's the type of movie where you're expectations going in are rather simple. This doesn't need to be an Oscar-winning drama. It just needs to be a fun horror film with alligators and it succeeds in that goal. In fact, I think it's one of the more effective terror in the water films. A perfect movie night with your friends. My grade for "Crawl" is an 8/10.