What do you do when a major storm is approaching, and emergency services are calling for evacuation? Evacuate right? Well, consider having a family member potentially stuck directly in line of the incoming storm. Your situation has just become very complicated, but you know what must be done. That is the situation that Haley Keller faces after finding out her father has not been in touch since the evacuation notice was posted.
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A fun creature feature, if a little unbelievable at times
One thing these creature feature horror flicks have in common – no matter the style or creature involved. You must give up believability at certain points during the fun. Think about it. How believable is it that someone could take the punishment that Jason does and not be dead? Or Freddy Krueger killing people in their dreams? Or a giant shark as in The Meg. Okay, that last one, that one could be real – maybe not on that scale but I am certain there are huge sharks in the ocean. Still though, The Meg took some liberties elsewhere in the action.Crawl is no different. There are a few points in the action that you simply must accept happened for the story to advance.
That is fine because Crawl is actually a pretty good horror flick featuring understandably dangerous creatures. I mean like in real life alligators will mess you up in no time.
My spoiler policy
It may seem weird putting this here but trust me, there is a reason.I do my best to avoid spoiling the movie that I am reviewing. Why? Because I want you to know if you should watch it without ruining it. If I give all the details away in a review, then you have no reason to go watch the movie.
I usually cover about halfway through the movie before cutting it.
Okay, back to the fun
Crawl is one of those slightly slower burn horror movies but when it gets going, we are talking fast. The opening is all about setting up Haley and her dad as inseparable and her situation on the swim team. We get a glimpse of her family with a phone call from her sister, Beth, who is the vehicle for the bad news. Their dad is not answering his phone and there is a Category 5 Hurricane, named Wendy, heading straight for Florida – their dad is directly in line to be hit. Haley cannot have this, even though Beth tries calling her off from doing anything rash. Considering their dad recently sold the family home after getting divorced from their mother, Haley finds her way to his condo. That is not before meeting up with a high school friend, who basically got friend-zoned, who is now working for the State Police. He tells Haley to turn back and she tries pleading but he won’t relent. She does as instruct then decides to be defiant and make use of her Jeep’s superior off-road capabilities to go around the roadblock (their heart obviously was not into it).  Making her way to the condo has Haley find the family pet dog, Sugar, but not her dad. Acting on a hunch, Haley heads to the old family home as the water rises rather quickly.Reaching the old family home in Coral Lake, Haley searches the house and finds her dad in the crawl space under the home. Get it? Crawl space, the movie is called “Crawl”.
Anyhow, Haley finds her dad, Dave, unconscious from a severe bite. Dave regains his wits and tells Haley that there are alligators in the crawl space as well.
This is where I will leave you with the story of Crawl because I don’t want to ruin the events that occur after this section.
Why Crawl should be on your watchlist
There are some great moments in this movie, some are scary as hell, others are thrilling, and others are touching and might bring a tear to your eye. The world is believable.  Much like Black Water, the emphasis of the movie is on one small location that is full of action. While that movie focused on the wide-open space of the swamp, Crawl limits our, and the characters, view by mainly taking place in a crawl space under a house that is slowly flooding.I know, you are thinking, how can a crawl space make a good location for a movie? A drama or action movie, no, but a horror movie – emphatic YES. That is the key to these limited location films – they know their role and don’t work to push out of it very much.
Alligators are already low to the ground creatures, natural fits for the antagonists in a movie like this. Think about it, people are not used to moving fast on our hands and knees. We are inherently at a disadvantage in this position. This raises the tension level quite a bit and Crawl’s director and writers run wild with the implications the characters face.
This is what sets Crawl well above what it could have been and propels it into the same area as classics of horror. The difference is, the horror we see in Crawl is very believable, if how Haley handles it is not so realistic. You will know what I mean when you watch Crawl.
Crawl is not perfect but man, it is a great ride while it lasts. I love that it doesn’t spend over half of its run time setting up characters and storylines that go nowhere as far as what we want to see. We get just enough information on secondary characters to know who they are, what drives them, and that is it. We are not forced to sit through Stephen King levels of character development that ultimately doesn’t do anything but pad the run time for the sake of padding.
That is ultimately one of the greatest strengths of these limited location creature feature horror movies. What we need to know is provided quickly and the action hits like a pro boxer – it knows when to hammer us then back off for a bit to give us a false sense of security before pounding some more. Rinse and repeat till the creatures go for the kill. This is an awesome formula and I am glad more movies are using it.
Sometimes you just want to sit down and have the crap scared out of you. Crawl does just that and quite well.
I watched Crawl via Vudu via my NVIDIA Shield TV device. You can grab physical copies of Crawl on eBay and Amazon (rental also available) if you like holding your movies (I like being able to watch when the Internet goes down). If you like this review, please consider an upvote or a direct donation via PayPal or Cash App. All proceeds go towards more reviews (such as paying to rent these movies) and are greatly appreciated. Thank you.
