Crawl (2019)
Dir: Alexandre Aja
Crawl, directed by Alexandre Aja, has received many comparisons to Jaws, which I think does it no favours. While both featuring man-eating aquatic animals, they are very different films. Crawl is the type of horror movie that when done right, I’m a big fan of. Contained within a Florida family house during a Category 5 hurricane, the film is a great exercise in escalating stakes in a contained setting for 90 minutes. The simple premise is well executed, basically as the storm floods in, our father and daughter protagonists are stuck in the basement of their house with a family of hungry alligators. As the water rise, they must move up the levels of the house, the advantage shifting more and as they do so the advantage shifts more and more to the reptilian adversaries. The performances and direction are strong and while it does feature a decent subplot about the estranged father/daughter relationship of our protagonists, the focus is kept firmly on the challenges at hand and it handles them expertly.
A very enjoyable, well executed, creature feature.