Crawl or Die

WHY'D I WATCH IT?

WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
I HAAAAAAAAAAAATE horror movies.

Not that all horror movies are terrible, but I'm far fonder of the thriller aspect than the horror aspect.

Blood geysers? No.
Graphic dismemberment? No.
Jumpscares? HEEEEEELL no.

I don't like the idea of a movie that's supposed to make me feel bad and I'm indefinitely baffled that people find this genre appealing.

THAT SAID, this is a horror movie I like. And I seem to be mostly alone in that since this movie has terrible reviews across the board.

Here's the set up: It's a minimalist indie movie. The movie opens up to a group of bodyguards being chased by something unseen in the woods before they escape into an underground complex and find themselves chased through a series of ever-decreasing-in-size tunnels as they get picked off one by one.

The monster at their heels is faster than them and bullets and explosions only seem to slow it down temporarily. When you think the tunnels can't get any smaller THEY DO.

I definitely see why people would harsh on this movie... unfairly.

There's very little dialog and nothing in the way of twists or turns to deviate away from exactly what it says on the box. It's a chase movie. The whole way. And you can't be multitasking with this movie since it's an experience piece. The POINT is for you to absorb every little thing that happens because in a movie like this the little things are far more important than they might otherwise seem to be.

As the tunnels get smaller, we see that the characters slowly lose their ability to move freely.

The first tunnels are rounded and throw them off balance.

The second tunnels make it difficult to see past each other.

The third tunnels make it difficult to change places.

And it goes on. It's a very exhausting movie, but nuance is hugely relevant here.


I can only imagine most people who watched this simply weren't paying attention or were waiting for jumpscares or had ADD because a lot of people just seem to write off the movie as boring.

I wasn't bored. And I credit that to the one thing this movie desperately needed to get right above nearly anything else: pacing.

With as little that happens in this movie, what does happen needs to occur frequently enough to keep me engaged. A lot of the movie is just meant to be absorbed, but no moment ever goes on too terribly long before someone dies, the tunnels get smaller, and the stakes ratchet up a notch.

If you're cool with that, you can dig this movie, if not, then go watch Transformers or something.

Obviously this movie shares quite a bit conceptually with Buried, which I hated. Suffice it to spoil: the protagonist survives. So no ****** downer ending. Having said that, this movie gets extraordinarily hopeless by the end.

My favorite part is easily when it's just two of them left and the monster's crawling just feet behind them and the music kicks in with this Drums In The Deep-type **** as it becomes a race to wiggle away faster.

Even later in the movie when we can't see the end of the tunnels anymore and the monster's still on our heels, it kicks into this sad piano melody which really does make it seem like it's over... but it's not.

Actually, I'd be inclined to credit the sound design as a whole if it wasn't also one of the weakest parts of the movie.

On one hand, the simple incidental backing music is well placed and the ambient sounds of the monster clicking and rustling away some distance behind them are great.

On the other hand, some of the sounds are terrible. Some digging clips sound muffled when they should sound clear, and one particular gunshot in the movie didn't even register with me the first time it happened because it's so bizarrely quiet. Some of the dialog seems unnecessarily quiet too and when it gets to the end of the movie you'll probably notice that they failed to redub over their scenes since in order to adjust their dialog volume during a quiet moment, they just haphazardly jank it up when a character's talking which is extremely obvious given the spike in background noise.

There's also an issue with lighting at the start of the movie which makes it somewhat difficult to see where the characters are in relation to their surroundings, however this evens out after the first 5 minutes.

My only other REAL complaint is in regards to the plot. Which is largely absent save for a brief couple minutes of flashback which feature the bodyguards getting briefed on their mission to escort "the last uninfected fertile woman" to Earth 2. Apparently Earth is either rampant with infertility or viruses or both (STI apocalypse?) and they gotta relocate to Earth 2 which is where they encounter the monster (oops! not safe after all).

My dig here is simply the "last fertile woman on earth" premise. The implication is obviously that the human race is relying on her to procreate more humans but EEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!