It Crawls Beneath

A boring type of stuck in one position movie. I don't have of enough words to explain my disdain for this movie. First the dialogue is poor. The plot is worse. Being trapped is not new to any movie genre but being trapped and being generally annoying is new. I don't know what the budget was but it had to be low. If it's a horror movie you are looking for, skip past this one and find something else. But if you want your fill from subterranean creatures that don't have an origin then this may be the movie for you. Unfortunately my taste is for better actors better scripts and better movies but hey to each their own.

I sat the whole movie out, but to be honest, I more than once used the FF button. Watching a man lying trapped under a car in a garage for what feels like an hour, gets pretty tedious, even if there are weird maggot-like worms creeping up on him. I guess the makers wanted to evoke the claustrophobic feeling of main character Danny, and in this they succeeded, but that doesn't automatically make for compelling cinema. The worms should have made the difference, but they were just too fake and unconvincing.

The lack of logic didn't make things any better. Like that a bite by a worm should be lethal within three hours, but we see Danny struggle for what seems to be endlessly, and he still can put up some heroic physical fights with the creatures up until the last minutes! Then there were these unnecessary side-storylines: Danny discovering (during the predicament of his being trapped!) that his real father is in fact the guy that lies crushed to death next to him under the same car; and his relational problems with his girlfriend. They didn't add anything whatsoever to the main story; if Bill would have been just a friend, and Danny's relation with Angela all peachy, then the story wouldn't have changed a bit! And finally they came up again with this lamest of clichés: a smartphone having only 3 percent battery (in the middle of the day?! What on earth did Danny do with that phone all morning long?!).

My only positive feeling concerned Joseph Armani as Danny, albeit mainly for his great looks. As an actor they didn't give him much to put his teeth in (well, except for one of the worms!).

Very direct storytelling, very quick pacing, very excessive use of music cues, very bad dialogue, very weak character writing, very bad scene writing - and, taking cues from kindred fare of the 1950s, an initial "encounter" which is mentioned in dialogue but which we don't actually see. All this and more, within only the first ten minutes. Yes, that's very quick to start making judgments, and I've seen some titles make a definite turnaround, but it's a poor first impression to say the least, on top of how the premise (and promotional artwork) rather recall a more famous series of creature features. As viewers we accept (to varying degrees) that some flicks are going to gleefully embrace the less earnest side of a genre, with no loftier goal than to be a fun little romp. How much fun such flicks actually provide is another matter. I don't think 'They crawl beneath' is completely rotten, but the viewing experience is saddled with compounding issues that place significant limits on what we can get out of it.

Those traits mentioned above that form our earliest impression remain factors in varying proportions. To these add the sudden emergence of a new species of worm, earthquakes that strike exactly when the story require them, and the circumstances in which protagonist Danny becomes trapped as suggested in the premise. It's a lot that the picture throws at us, and a lot that it asks of us under the unspoken agreement of suspension of disbelief. The difficulty is that between these major story elements and the swift pacing, let alone the other weaknesses, that disbelief is hard to surrender, and the possibility is quite dampened of there being any thrills from the conglomeration. As the length draws on, it further becomes evident that basic entertainment hangs by a thread, and it's the baseline level of entertainment that follows from most any conglomeration of light and sound. Moreover, the direction isn't necessarily the greatest; the cast do what they can under the circumstances, though I think they make a decent enough go of it. The practical effects are actually mostly pretty terrific, though may be employed to more questionable ends; the post-production visuals are a little too obvious, though better than a lot of other examples. 'They crawl beneath' also comes across at points as overproduced, accentuated by, of all things, how wholly impeccable Karlee Eldridge's makeup seems to be any time we see her.

Would that screenwriter Tricia Aurand didn't also try to weave in bits about the protagonist's personal life, which are irrelevant to the scenario and direly weigh down the proceedings. The root narrative is fine, if simple, but the specifics that flesh out these eighty-seven minutes are much less sure-footed, including dialogue in the last third or so that seems to senselessly and arbitrarily contradict earlier dialogue. Oliver Goodwill's music ranges from suitable to good, if unremarkable, but is plainly overused here and far too prominent. What it all comes down to is that this is a movie with distinct flaws and shortcomings, and which is troubled still more by too little strength, and too little vitality; there are no meaningful dynamics or meaningful progression, and in turn no meaningful tension or suspense. The course of events is just presented rather flatly, with each beat and inclusion tossed in in the most straightforward, unsubtle manner possible; it's surely longer than it needs to be, and the last stretch following the climax may be the lowest point of all. It's not abjectly terrible, yet for all the hard work that went into it, this is effectively a horror flick by the numbers, with no heart to make any of it count. Add in all the other discrete problems, and watching becomes a tad laborious. If you happen to come across it then there still far worse ways to spend one's time, but regrettably, there's just not any real reason to spend time with this in the first place.

Not any good? Well, I had a laugh alright, when I started watching this movie, because it was so utterly terrible, that I actually thought this might be a parody, a conscious attempt to make a terrible horror movie that was meant to evoke laughter instead of horror. But ofcourse this wasnt the case!

The bad: this is NOT horror. This is NOT thrilling for one second.

What is it then? Amateur hour. We get to see a guy laying trapped under a car for an hour long. Well, you might think, isnt that dramatic? NOPE. The "actors" starring in this product are C-listed actors, who usually only would get roles in tv commercials or tv soap series, wherein any acting capabilities are not important.

No pun intended - the movie is .. well you have to cut it quite some slack. You have to be a fan of horror movies too. Michael Pare is I reckon a known name, but it is someone else who is the main character here - Pare is only there to add some name recognition I suppose.

The real star are the special effects anyway - which are not bad considering this is a low budget movie. Still the question is, can you dig (no pun intended) being closed off, being a "prisoner" in a close space and just let the absurdity of the movie rule over you and the running time? I don't judge any actor or rather their acting abilities just based on this movie - you probably shouldn't either ... they don't act ... naturally ... again no pun intended.