Featured Blu-ray and DVD Review: Crawl

October 14, 2019

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Crawl

Crawl is the latest horror film from director Alexandre Aja. It’s a Nature Horror film, a subgenre that usually features killer animals or extreme weather. This one has both. Can the film mix these two threats in an effective way? Or is it just get silly trying to combine the two?

The Movie

We have a short plot summary this time around. Kaya Scodelario stars as Haley Driver, a university swimmer, who we first meet at practice. She gets a call from her sister, Beth, who is worried about their dad, Dave. She hasn’t been able to contact him all day and there’s a hurricane barreling down on their hometown. Haley agrees to check on him, first heading to the condo where he now lives, finding only his dog. This is proof he hasn’t evacuated as he should have, so she heads to the home the family was at before the parents divorced and has been in escrow since then.

At first, Haley can’t find any trace of her father at the old home. She tries calling his phone again, this time hearing it ring finding the phone on the kitchen counter. After this, she hears faint music coming from the basement. Heading down, she finds her Dad, he’s unconscious in the crawlspace. He was attacked by something. We soon learn it was an alligator, when the beast returns and chases the pair to the back corner of the crawlspace. They have to get out, soon, as the rain from the hurricane begins to flood the crawlspace.

That’s really it for the plot and frankly I gave more details than you needed to know.

Crawl

Review

Crawl isn’t a movie that relies on plot. There’s just a simple setup where the two main characters and their dysfunctional family relationship are established and then the alligators and the hurricane get involved. It needs excellent execution to turn this simple premise into a thrilling horror film. And this film has excellent execution. Alexandre Aja has a real talent for building tension in films like this and an eye for directing a scene that creates a cinematic look, despite a very limited scope. (The film takes place during one day and mostly in a handful of sets in one location.) The two lead actors, Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper, are also major assets giving their characters a lot of depth. It’s easy to empathize with them and that’s key to a good horror movie. If you don’t care about the characters, it doesn’t matter how much peril they are in, it’s a major failing for a lot of horror movies. Here the two leads have such good chemistry together that you are drawn in almost immediately.

That said, Crawl isn’t aiming to be anything more than a tight thrill ride and if you are looking for something more, then you will likely walk away disappointed. I’ve seen the film described as a B-movie, both in a positive and a negative way, and I think this is accurate, so your enjoyment will depend on your appreciation of B-movies. Personally, I was into it all the way.

The Extras

Extras begin with an alternative opening, in animatic form, with an optional intro. Combined, the running time is just over five minutes. There are three deleted / extended scenes with a total running time of six minutes. Beneath Crawl is a 28-minute long making of featurette. Category 5 Gators is a 12-minute look at the special effects in the movie. Alligator Attacks is a 90-second super-cut of the alligator attacks. That’s a total of about 53 minutes of extras. There’s no audio commentary track, but the overall package is still good.

The Verdict

Crawl isn’t trying to be anything more than a thrilling B-movie horror film, but if you are looking for that kind of film, then this film delivers that promise with exceptional execution. There are not a ton of extras on the DVD / Blu-ray, but enough that it is worth picking up.

Filed under: Video Review, Crawl, Alexandre Aja, Barry Pepper, Kaya Scodelario, Morfydd Clark