Crawl

Crawl has a nice digital setting and, in the second half, a decent build-up of suspense and unpredictable use of the limited stage. Given the seemingly transparent plot that involves a skillful swimmer and her relationship with her father that needs to be healed, it turned out to be quite a profoundly written and directed survival-horror movie. It’s a half-star more enjoyable than the similarly themed The Shallows. (08/26/2019)

A suspenseful horror film about two heroes who find themselves trapped in a basement with hungry alligators during a hurricane. Clever and interesting characters, well built tension and some pretty gritty scenes make Crawl a very fine genre entertainment. Too bad it turns from horror to action B-movie at the end. (07/13/2019)

Nobody wanted Aja to make Jaws with a crocodile, but… This mess, which is neither serious and suspenseful enough to be, well, "serious", nor is it stupid and over-the-top enough to work at least as guilty pleasure (such moments are, unfortunately, very rare), is nothing more than a genre dullard seen hundreds of times without any charge, idea or adrenaline. (07/10/2019)

Crawl gave me exactly what I expected from a horror about alligators, and maybe Alexandre Aja even slightly surpassed my expectations, because he created a really entertaining and action packed survival movie in which there is always something happening. In terms of the screenplay, it is not all that great, but whoever went through the filmography of the Rasmussen brothers in advance would not have been able to expect anything else, and if anyone had pointed out that most of the supporting characters in the movie are just there to be killed off, they would have been right, yet it simply does its job as an entertaining summer horror movie. It met my expectations as a great movie to wash away the stress of everyday life. After Piranha 3D, Aja was again able to make the most of the trashy subject matter and create solid and exciting entertainment. Also, having such a striking song over the end credits has been missing in the movies for a long time. (07/18/2019)

Crawl doesn't set out to be an animal horror film that in any way stands out from the ranks within its genre, but that's not to say that it's bland through and through. As far as the technical workmanship goes, the film features realistically rendered scenes with alligators that hardly look artificial at all. Unlike Alexandre Aja's Piranha 3D, there are no hectolitres of blood in this case and the film also focuses on family and the relationship between the daughter and the father. They could have toned down a bit on this relationship line and added more dark, horror scenes, though there were a few good scares. All that being said, this is a thrilling piece that will surely keep the inhabitants of the alligator areas away from waterlogged places for some time, and which I would compare in quality to 2016's The Shallows. (07/14/2019)