Halloween Films: Part 5 (3 of 7). Henry heads into a hurricane with Crawl (currently available via Amazon Prime). Get the full show now @ FilmBuds.Bandcamp.com!
[00:00:01] Let's get to Crawl from 2019. It's directed by Alexander Aja, stars Kea Scolidario, Barry Pepper, and the synopsis is,
[00:00:17] gigantic alligators swarm around a young woman and her father as floodwaters engulf their home.
[00:00:26] If you haven't already checked it out, I did cover Alexander Aja's horns a few weeks ago.
[00:00:34] And having done that, figured I might as well cover this one as well.
[00:00:40] It's very much a B-genre film. I think it's very rare that it's that, but it has a very bare-bones concept and narrative.
[00:00:53] It's pretty much just this young woman trying to save her father who has not been answering his phone during a hurricane.
[00:01:01] She later finds him injured in his basement and then angry alligators come in as the floodwaters slowly get higher and higher,
[00:01:12] and they have to fight for survival.
[00:01:16] As I already mentioned on the horns review, Alexander Aja has a great eye and this movie looks really good.
[00:01:26] The color palette, the locations, the effects all are put to good use and work well.
[00:01:35] The lead actress, Kaya Scolidario, I haven't really seen her in a whole lot else.
[00:01:40] I don't think she's been in a ton of stuff, but this was my first exposure to her.
[00:01:45] She's very good.
[00:01:48] Barry Pepper, such an underrated character actor.
[00:01:53] Whenever he pops up in anything, I'm always excited.
[00:01:58] I'm pretty sure I saw him first in Flags of Our Fathers, maybe, or The Snow Walker, one of those.
[00:02:08] And they work well together. I buy them as father and daughter.
[00:02:11] This is also produced by Sam Raimi.
[00:02:18] When the daughter first gets into the basement and encounters the alligators, she gets dragged away.
[00:02:27] When the cops show up, who we meet early on,
[00:02:31] and there's that really dramatic shot that was big in the trailers
[00:02:37] when he's hanging over the doorway to the basement.
[00:02:41] Then an alligator jumps out and grabs him and spins him around and kills him.
[00:02:48] When it cuts back out to the exterior and there are those looters trying to take stuff from the gas station,
[00:02:56] the alligators swarm in, grabs one of them, I think, and each alligator grabs a different limb
[00:03:04] and then pulls them apart completely.
[00:03:08] All of the shots underwater are very effective of the alligators swimming around and you don't know where they are.
[00:03:17] And there are definitely callbacks to Jaws and similar creature features,
[00:03:22] but Jaws is obviously a big influence.
[00:03:27] The alligators are very effective of the alligators.
[00:03:29] The alligators are very effective of the alligators.
[00:03:32] And overall, the use of sound is very well done.
[00:03:39] As the movie progresses, it does definitely take liberties with how much the average person,
[00:03:47] or anyone really, could survive within such a short time.
[00:03:53] They've both been bitten multiple times by the alligators.
[00:03:58] They've been dragged around.
[00:03:59] They've been hit by intense flood waters.
[00:04:03] So you do have to have that suspension of disbelief of,
[00:04:07] okay, they're still going, but that's obviously not realistic.
[00:04:13] The shots or sequences when the alligators are crawling through the sewer tunnels,
[00:04:21] then one pops up out of the dirty water and attacks the daughter.
[00:04:28] And that's followed up by her in open water, and all of them are swarming trying to get her.
[00:04:36] When they get out of the basement and they get into the house,
[00:04:41] there seems to be a decent amount of use of practical effects like real water.
[00:04:46] Maybe I'm crazy there, but I think they use real effects as much as they could.
[00:04:54] I also really like how, considering how much I love dogs and all the links that I would go to
[00:05:00] to save my dog if I was in that situation,
[00:05:04] it seems intentional that they make a point of showing the dog always in danger.
[00:05:11] You thinking, oh, it's definitely going to die right now.
[00:05:15] Like you see it walk to another floor,
[00:05:18] it disappears for a little bit, or it has to go and grab something and bring it back,
[00:05:23] and you're always thinking, this is it.
[00:05:26] But, spoilers, never does.
[00:05:29] He survives, thank goodness.
[00:05:33] Trapping the alligator in the shower was clever.
[00:05:38] And then there's that great shot when she does get bitten yet again,
[00:05:42] and she has the flare in her hand,
[00:05:45] and she's being spun around underwater,
[00:05:47] and there's a really good use of different color palettes
[00:05:52] like the blues and blacks against the flashing red.
[00:05:57] You know that they're going to survive at the end.
[00:06:01] There's always going to be a sense of danger,
[00:06:03] and you think they might die,
[00:06:04] but in the end they do get rescued.
[00:06:08] And that's satisfying,
[00:06:10] despite it being predictable.
[00:06:13] There aren't a lot of big issues at all.
[00:06:17] Probably the only thing, writing-wise,
[00:06:20] that gets on my nerves a little bit
[00:06:22] is the whole apex predator thing
[00:06:26] with the daughter and the father
[00:06:30] her being this swim star
[00:06:32] or falling behind, I guess,
[00:06:34] and trying to prove it to herself and her dad.
[00:06:37] And when they do reconnect,
[00:06:39] he's like, you're an apex predator.
[00:06:41] You're better than them.
[00:06:42] You can swim faster.
[00:06:45] It's a little on the nose, a little goofy.
[00:06:48] But it's not a big part of that dialogue between them,
[00:06:52] so it doesn't hurt it that much.
[00:06:56] The score is quite good.
[00:06:58] Oh, and lastly,
[00:07:02] one of the best special effects shot
[00:07:04] in terms of scale is when the levee breaks
[00:07:07] and it floods the house
[00:07:09] and it floods that whole area.
[00:07:12] I would highly recommend this.
[00:07:14] If you like any kind of genre,
[00:07:17] horror, action films,
[00:07:19] this is easily one of the best ones
[00:07:22] of the last six or seven years.
[00:07:24] That is a heavy four out of five.
[00:07:30] So if you like any kind of
[00:07:30] that you can see
[00:07:30] with,
[00:07:31] you know,