Crawl *** (2019, Kaya Scodelario, Barry Pepper, Morfydd Clark) – Movie Review

Director Alexandre Aja’s dark, gory and nasty horror movie Crawl (2019) has not a single laugh until after it is finished at the end credits, but it still manages to be a lot of unpleasant fun, packed with scares and tension, and great ‘what the heck?’ moments, throughout its perfectly short running time of 87 minutes.

There are basically only two roles in the film. Kaya Scodelario stars as Haley, a young competitive swimmer, who defies police to drive into a category five hurricane on her Florida hometown to check her estranged father Dave (Barry Pepper) is OK. But he is not.

And very soon she is not either. Haley finds herself trapped in the crawlspace basement of her dad’s flooding house and having to battle a merciless pair of six-metre predator alligators to try to save her father, herself and her little dog too.

Both actors are terrific, under difficult circumstances, making you believe those pesky alligators are really there in with them. The CGI and sets are really well done in a movie that looks smart. And Aja whips up enormous tension and atmosphere, shooting with imaginative skill, keeping the movie moving. It’s only a movie, but all elements are convincing. It delivers the horror goods satisfyingly.

The efficient script by Michael Rasmussen and Shawn Rasmussen was inspired by a true alligator event from Hurricane Florence.

Morfydd Clark plays Haley’s sister Beth, Ross Anderson plays nice policeman Wayne, and Anson Boon, Ami Metcalf and George Somner pay three young looters. Unfortunately for the actors, they have virtually nothing to do, and it is all about Haley and Dave’s chances of survival in this people-in-peril jeopardy movie.

It was filmed in Belgrade, Serbia, which no doubt helps to account for its very low budget of $13,500,000. There is tax help from the Canadian government too, so, with a US gross of $38,678,378, and a cumulative worldwide gross of $65,074,279, it is well on its way to bite off a huge chunk of profit.

With its one-woman battle against the monsters and against the odds, it is not Jaws that it recalls, but the 2016 The Shallows when Blake Lively is attacked by a great white shark.

There is strong bloody creature violence, which is quite nasty, and strong language that is surprisingly brief given the circumstances.

[Spoiler alert] The joke comes when Bill Haley’s fun Fifties rock ‘n’ roll song ‘See You Later Alligator’ plays as soon as the credits begin, wildly at odds with the film’s dark tone. This joke spoils the mood totally, though admittedly it does seem to set up Crawl 2.

To put your mind at rest, especially if you are planning a Florida trip, alligators prefer smaller prey and are not usually aggressive towards humans, so in a hurricane they would choose other animals as easier dinner to people. The American alligator is known as a human predator to the public because the media publicises any of the infrequent attacks, usually on small children or babies.

Playing a convincing American, Kaya Scodelario was born in Haywards Heath, Sussex, England.

By the way, to explain the title, the alligators are in water during the movie, not crawling about, but Hayley and Dave are trapped in the basement crawl space, and Hayley is an expert at the crawl swim stroke, so she can swim faster than alligators apparently.

Let’s get picky. Alligators swim at speeds up to 20 mph, while Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps topped out at about 6 mph, so Hayley had better be fast. Yes, obviously basements are rare in low-lying, sandy Florida, but anyway they exist and again the film is inspired by a true alligator event.

Scodelario and Pepper are also both in Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015) and Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018).

Alexandre Aja was born on 7 August 1978 in Paris as Alexandre Jouan Arcady [hence Aja], and is  known for High Tension (2003), The Hills Have Eyes (2006), Mirrors (2008), Piranha 3D (2010), Horns (2013) and The 9th Life of Louis Drax (2016).