Crawl (2019)
Directed by Alexandre Aja
When a huge hurricane hits her hometown in Florida, Haley ignores evacuation orders to look for her father. After finding him badly wounded, both are trapped by the flood. With virtually no time to escape the storm, they discover that rising water levels are the least of their problems.
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5 films that influenced Crawl
What critics say influenced Crawl
It’s similar in nature to Fede Alverez’s Don’t Breathe from 2016, another late-summer programmer that was also produced by Sam Raimi which found an audience through a solid understanding of horror fundamentals and a novel concept (if, ultimately, it came to a pitiful conclusion).
In that respect, Crawl reminded me of 2016’s Don’t Breathe , also produced by Raimi, in that it works despite mostly taking place in a single location with just two actors.
In the lackluster summer of 2016, The Shallows (in which a stranded Blake Lively matches wits with a shark) and Don’t Breathe (in which trapped young people match wits with a wily, murderous blind man) provided more efficient and consistent thrills than a lot of their super-sized, mega-budgeted counterparts.
From the Evil Dead franchise to Darkman to even his three Spider-Man films, Raimi’s talent is using a combination of workman-like craftsmanship and winking self-awareness to make movies that are technically proficient while never losing their sense of fun.
Crawl isn’t as well-crafted as either The Shallows or Don’t Breathe, though it shares a producer with the latter: Sam Raimi, whose first two Evil Dead movies are gonzo versions of the limited-location thriller.
But when you realize the film’s producer was the guy behind the “Evil Dead” movies, it’s tempting to wonder if with a little more craziness, “Crawl” could have been even better.
With Raimi’s experience in the Evil Dead films and Aja’s campy style in Piranha 3D , Crawl would not hesitate to make you cringe in your seat.
A few shots here and there are so up close to the alligator, it wouldn’t hurt to just build a physical animatronic head that moves around – kind of like that crocodile head Robin Williams held onto in Jumanji .
Every summer now seems to have a humanity vs. beasts slot, one filled in recent years by The Shallows (2016), 47 Meters Down (2017), and The Meg (2018).
But last summer’s “The Meg” demonstrated that even a shamelessly literal and not-very-suspenseful re-assemblage of “Jaws” tricks could convince audiences they were having a good enough time, and next month will give us the “47 Meters Down” sequel “Uncaged.”
Films of the monster movie genre often fall flat on their face by failing to realise the absurdity of their premise and attempt to be something they’re not, as we saw with last year’s problematic The Meg .
The Shallows , Piranha 3D , 47 Meters Down , The Meg -- what would the summer movie season be without a water-based creature feature?
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If it’s pure, dumb-as-a-croc (apologies to those hyper-intelligent creatures for the pun) escapism you’re after, then Crawl arguably packs more of a punch than the last two Jurassic Worlds combined – on a 20th of their budget.