A short while back CRAWL was the Cineworld Unlimited Secret Screening which I missed, last night I got together with my good buddies Lolly and Will and headed over to Broughton to check out the movie that I’d been hearing so much about.
Films like CRAWL can fall foul of being overhyped, but I have to say that in this case, the hype wasn’t wrong! It most probably is a movie that is doing for gators what Jaws did for sharks, CRAWL as some serious bite when comes to on the edge of your seat creature feature.
CRAWL opens up with an introduction to our key character, Haley (Kaya Scodelario, Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials), as she tries to gain her scholarship and proves what she has as a swimmer, with a looming storm on the way, her sister calls to ask if she has heard from their dad (Barry Pepper). Haley makes her way through the storm to find why her father isn’t returning their calls and finds him in their old house.
With the category 5 hurricane hitting hard, things really couldn’t get any worse, until Haley finds her father and she is confronted with an Alligator hungry for human flesh, now it a fight for survival against the storm and the killer Alligators that are hunting Haley and her father.
Director Alexandre Aja (Horns, Mirrors) has certainly ramped it up for this creature feature with so many moments having you on the edge of your seat and biting your nails as the alligators hunt in the crawl space under the house as it fills with water, there are plenty of moments that will have you jumping in your seat and unlike movie that uses those bang noises and nothing happens, most of the jump scare come from those moments that the alligators attack from under the water.
It certainly makes a change from having sharks or giant snakes as the creatures that are chomping on human prey, CRAWL has taken what is already a menacing and terrifying creature and made it even more menacing and shocking. Having the main characters trapped in the crawl space and hunted by the alligators makes the movie different from others.
Building on the tension of the film is the brilliant use of the surround sound as you get to be fully immersed in not only the sound of the rain and the hurricane with the wind blowing around the speakers, you also get several moments of picking out the sounds of the alligators behind you or the swish of their tails in the water on the left or right of you.
If you fancy a change from the run of the mill horror and Sci-Fi films, then CRAWL is certainly the movie to check out, but be warned, hold on to the tub of popcorn very tightly.
The Creature Feature with BITE!!
Movie title: Crawl (2019)
Movie description: A young woman, while attempting to save her father during a category 5 hurricane, finds herself trapped in a flooding house and must fight for her life against alligators.
Date published: August 23, 2019
Country: UK
Duration: 1h 27min
Director(s): Alexandre Aja
Actor(s): Kaya Scodelario, Barry Pepper, Morfydd Clark
Genre: Action, Drama, Horror
Karen Woodham is the founder and owner of the Blazing Minds. She is also a Cinema reviewer and works with RealD 3D reviewing the latest 3D releases and IMAX, she has also had several articles published in various publications including the first edition of SFW Magazine. In 2015 she became an Award Winning Blogger and also has her website listed as one of the UK’s Top 10 Film Blogs.
