Gators in a House: "Crawl" a lean, mean thrill machine that does what it should

Crawl (2019)

87 min.

Release Date: July 12, 2019 (Wide)

Being trapped in a crawlspace during a Category 5 hurricane with water flooding in and several alligators is the stuff of nightmares and the simple premise behind the no-frills “Crawl.” Directed by Alexandre Aja (2016’s “The 9th Life of Louis Drax”) and penned by brothers Michael Rasmussen and Shawn Rasmussen (2011’s “The Ward”), the film is lean and mean, getting in and getting out at 87 minutes with no time for a climate-change metaphor. With basic character development quickly dealt with, it’s one hairy, white-knuckle situation after another, and what “Crawl” does, it does quite efficiently and then keeps upping the ante. A legitimately nail-biting creature feature released during the summer is like a Christmas in July present for genre fans.

University of Florida competitive swimmer Haley Keller (Kaya Scodalario) comes in second place at a swim meet just as a hurricane is brewing outside and everyone in town is evacuating. When her equally stubborn and divorced father, Dave (Barry Pepper), won’t answer her calls, she drives a couple hours to their in-escrow family home in Coral Lake to check on him and finds his truck in the driveway. Hearing a radio in the crawlspace under the house, Haley soon finds her dad unconscious and wounded behind all the pipes. As it turns out, one alligator (as far as they know) has crawled through the storm drain and ruined their only chance of easily escaping the crawlspace. Using her swimming speed and endurance and overall know-how, Haley will have to fend her and her dad off from many more gators that enter the space as the storm intensifies and the water fills up.

“Crawl” is a nonstop blast, a prime summer movie that will satisfy moviegoers who paid to see some expertly staged gator shenanigans. As a thriller, it is tight, straightforward, and more than capable of delivering all the stress-laden terror and giddy excitement that typify this kind of picture; it’s even respectably gory, however, more of a crowd-pleaser that’s never on the nastier level of Alexandre Aja’s oeuvre (like 2005’s “High Tension,” 2006’s “The Hills Have Eyes” and 2010’s “Piranha 3D”). On a technical level, the craftsmanship is impressive, with carefully chosen shots, like the camera picking up a doorway with Haley’s height marks throughout her childhood that will eventually show the depth of the water inside the home, and devious use of space and background (in one case for the latter, an attack on one member of an unlucky trio of thieves looting a whole ATM machine on to a fishing boat is glimpsed through a convenience store mirror).  

The cast primarily consists of Kaya Scodelario (2018’s “The Death Cure”) and Barry Pepper, who are easy to buy as a daughter and father cut from the same cloth. Scodelario is the focal point of the film, giving one hell of a physical and emotional performance as Haley, and the viewer vicariously experiences what she goes through in testing her bravery to save both her, her father, and family dog Sugar. And, as for the alligators and the storm, the effects are as convincing as they need to be to elicit genuine danger. Earnest scenes of father and daughter hashing out their troubled history, accompanied by music-swelling flashbacks to Dave coaching Haley, sometimes slow down the pace at times when the characters already have our investment, but that’s a mere nitpick for a film that is relentless, harrowing, and without any pretenses. The tautly paced and technically accomplished “Crawl” is a genre treat that actually warrants the tired “edge-of-your-seat” expression.

Grade: B