Look, I enjoyed the Blake Lively versus a shark flick, The Shallows, so when Crawl (2019) came out this year, released quietly without any critic screenings, I was hoping for more of the same – just a different critter. Thrillers like this are a succession of obstacles for the beleaguered protagonist, and are not for everyone since it is just one thing after another. However if you are game, this film was better than The Shallows and a lot of other thrillers released this year. A college athlete (Kaya Scodelario) training in swimming checks in on her absent dad (Barry Pepper) during an oncoming hurricane in Florida – but what do you know, they both wind up in the basement crawl space of their family house with an alligator stuck in there with them! This is a wild premise but I felt the movie was a classy take on it with a controlled sense of pacing, sympathetic characters, disposable (i.e. chompable) secondary players, atmospheric scenery due to the ever present storm, and successful jump scares (I was watching this by myself at home and found myself letting out a yelp when an alligator would jump out of the corners, haha). The classiest touch of the movie I can’t even spoil – and it all clocks in at a tight 87 minute run time. Directed by Alexandre Aja and produced by Sam Riami, I thought Crawl was grisly, tense and a lot of fun.
VHS Tracking 