Kaya Scodelario in Crawl. Credit: Paramount Pictures
30-second review: Picture a movie where a father and daughter are trapped in a cramp Florida basement in the middle of a Category Five hurricane by alligators — and you have Crawl. It is exactly the brainless, thrilling, and often ridiculous B-movie that you'd expect — even if it is a bit overly serious.
It doesn't do anything to differentiate itself from any other of the countless films with a similar premise — and that's fine. It makes up for it with anxiety-inducing action scenes and a committed lead performance by Kaya Scodelario.
Where to watch Crawl: In theaters now.
Alligators. Are. Aggressive. Full review below ?
Take 2016's The Shallows and replace a secluded Mexican beach with a flooded Florida basement in the middle of a category 5 hurricane, the shark with a congregation of alligators — that's the right term — and the seagull with an adorable dog named Sugar and you basically have Crawl.
It has one of the most recognizable movie premises, yet Crawl (mostly) succeeds because of the moments when it takes that premise — and all the familiar beats — and tackles them in an intelligent way.
The set up is swift and breezy. Haley Keller (played by a spirited Kaya Scodelario) is about to leave town as a category five hurricane is about to bear down on the Florida coast. However, after her sister voices concern that she hasn't heard from their father (Barry Pepper), she redirects course to go find him.
In her childhood home — under escrow after her parents' divorce, she follows a set of clues to the cramp, damp, and dark basement — a crawl space really — where her father unconscious and badly injured with a nasty bit on his shoulder and broken leg with an exposed bone. It's during this scene that I realized Crawl was going to be different. It wasn't afraid to slowly ratchet up the tension until it was nearly unbearable, instead of going for an easy scare.
The crafty Haley smartly rolls her father onto a tarp to drag her father to safety, but just as she's about to climb up the basement steps a massive — and particularly tenacious — alligator attacks the pair. Realizing she's trapped, Haley and her father come up with different ways to escape from the slowly flooding basement with the lives — and limbs.
What makes Crawl particularly work is its setting and bleak atmosphere set by director Alexandre Aja (Piranha 3D). Instead of a bright and open beach or an open lake or the Amazon river, Crawl puts so much of its horror in its claustrophobic setting. There's little room to move, little light, and its filling with water — what's worse than that? Oh yeah, the alligators. And Aja puts that setting to work with ingenious ways to test the pair as they fight for survival.
The second part of the equation comes from Kaya Scodelario's performance. Just like Blake Lively in The Shallows, she doesn't phone it in or act like she's in a B-movie. She goes at it with all she's got physically, emotionally, and all the badassery of any great final girl. Plus, there's just enough character development and relationship building between the two leads to make the movie compelling, but not too heavy.
Though the movie certainly comes close to overstaying its welcome over its 87 minutes, it's hard not to be entertained and completely terrified by it. It's not the most original movie, but in a summer where every blockbuster is a remake or sequel, it's refreshing to have a (nearly) brainless but well put together one to entertain audiences. I wish it took itself a little less seriously — and had more lines like “Apex predator all day” — but with Crawl what you see is what you get, and that's perfect.
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Hey! I'm Karl. You can find me on Twitter here. I'm also a Tomatometer-approved critic.
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