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Simple. There's no time, only the need to survive. That's the warning that Dave Keller (Barry Pepper) gives his daughter Haley (Kaya Scodelario) as they are hounded by alligators while hiding under their house in the midst of a hurricane. Simple as that. Simple is also the premise of this mixture of disaster and horror directed by Alexandre Aja, and it works pretty darn well.
The film starts setting up the stage establishing the estranged relationship between Haley, an aspiring swimmer, and her father and former coach. There is tension, regret, guilt over past events, marriage and divorce... but the film doesn't waste too much time before throwing us into the eye of the hurricane, literally and figuratively. Less than 20 minutes in, we're already deep in the crawl space, with danger staring us in the face. The above warning comes at the 45 minute mark, on a film that literally lasts 1 hour and 45 minutes. So we have less than an hour to see if they survive or not. Whether it's drowned or eaten by alligators. Simple.
Director Aja has always had a talent for handling both dread and scares in an effective way. From Haute Tension to The Hills Have Eyes, he has often succeeded in making us wince and cringe and fidget as terror floods the screen. Crawl is no exception. For a film with such a simple premise set in such a limited space, Aja manages to deliver with the jumpscares and the tension, while building a solid empathy for the lead characters.
If anything, there are some incongruencies as far as the amount of pain and injury that the two lead characters can endure, as opposed to others not-so-lucky characters, but I guess that's expected. We want them to feel real and vulnerable, but we want them to survive as well. Simple as that. As it is, that simplicity might also work against the film. I mean, there really isn't much to bite at, but at the end of the day, it accomplishes what it sets out to achieve. Simple.
Grade:
CRAWL
(2019, Aja)
A film with a title that starts with the letters C or D:
(2019, Aja)
A film with a title that starts with the letters C or D:
"Is there a plan B?"
"That *was* our plan B. In less than an hour, this crawl space will be under water."
"That *was* our plan B. In less than an hour, this crawl space will be under water."
Simple. There's no time, only the need to survive. That's the warning that Dave Keller (Barry Pepper) gives his daughter Haley (Kaya Scodelario) as they are hounded by alligators while hiding under their house in the midst of a hurricane. Simple as that. Simple is also the premise of this mixture of disaster and horror directed by Alexandre Aja, and it works pretty darn well.
The film starts setting up the stage establishing the estranged relationship between Haley, an aspiring swimmer, and her father and former coach. There is tension, regret, guilt over past events, marriage and divorce... but the film doesn't waste too much time before throwing us into the eye of the hurricane, literally and figuratively. Less than 20 minutes in, we're already deep in the crawl space, with danger staring us in the face. The above warning comes at the 45 minute mark, on a film that literally lasts 1 hour and 45 minutes. So we have less than an hour to see if they survive or not. Whether it's drowned or eaten by alligators. Simple.
Director Aja has always had a talent for handling both dread and scares in an effective way. From Haute Tension to The Hills Have Eyes, he has often succeeded in making us wince and cringe and fidget as terror floods the screen. Crawl is no exception. For a film with such a simple premise set in such a limited space, Aja manages to deliver with the jumpscares and the tension, while building a solid empathy for the lead characters.
If anything, there are some incongruencies as far as the amount of pain and injury that the two lead characters can endure, as opposed to others not-so-lucky characters, but I guess that's expected. We want them to feel real and vulnerable, but we want them to survive as well. Simple as that. As it is, that simplicity might also work against the film. I mean, there really isn't much to bite at, but at the end of the day, it accomplishes what it sets out to achieve. Simple.
Grade: