Crawl

A bland feeding of deadly predators that won’t offend any connoisseur of the genre, but may cause some harmless grumble in their bellies if they think about Alexandre Aja’s early and very uncompromising stuff. Piranha 3D, albeit a colossal insanity, was a lot more fun and bold as a movie. Crawl sticks to its characters and manages to bring the viewer close, but it’s unable to sell the threat of the alligator in a naturalistic or tense enough way. But it’s a fine flick nevertheless, with pretty good actors and a good director that used to be great, which in this case is a real shame. (10/14/2019)

Quentin Tarantino declared Crawl to be his favorite movie this year and I understand why. The simple story of a swimmer/daughter in a flood zone in Florida looking for her dad whom she can’t get in touch with has more to it than it seems at the beginning. Although this tense horror chase movie with a dramatic foundation comprising the dad/daughter relationship turns into a classic B-movie in the end, the heroes aren’t dumb and are played well (with Kaya Scodelario giving an unbelievable performance), and there are abundant bloody surprises. (11/05/2019)

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)

Alexandre Aja is back on the scene after a long time with survival film featuring an alligator that, together with Rogue, is one of the best things you can find with alligators. It has a fast pace, a decent amount of suspense, believable alligators that command respect every time they're on the scene, and there's a bit of gore, even if most of it is hidden underwater. I genuinely enjoyed myself and with how miserable has been in horror, I'm not ashamed to give it 4 stars. 70% (09/03/2019)

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)