Crawl

Nice and gritty little survival game of wits as a dad and his intrepid daughter try to get through no less than a hurricane just as the floodwaters release a hungry bevy of beauteous and bodacious alligators. Doesn't feel cheap or rushed and with loads of "what's that shadow moving under the water" tension.

I saw this in a theatre with my pal. Had high hopes with names like Aja, Raimi n Ghost House Pictures. The film is fast paced with sufficient kills. Only problem is the lack of character development of the extras. The last good crocodile film I revisited was Rogue n that film had some character development regarding the extras (fellas who get killed off) but in this film, extras r jus killed left right n cente, while our lead pair of father n daughter keeps hanging around in their basement with wounds. One of the best part about this film is the cinematography especially the constant rain n wind. Lots of crocodiles with vicious kills. Tension is maintained with a solid background music. Morgan Freeman's Hard Rain n Bait 3D came to mind while viewing this.

Despite 3 or 4 irritating scenes that transpire script mediocrity with let's say 1 or 2 appalling minutes, the film manages to scare the audience with panache, at least me anyway. I was indeed gesticulating in my armchair each time an alligator grabbed and shook a protagonist. Actually, it's not really surprising: as an euphemism, in the horror / thriller genre, Alexandre Aja is definitely not a padawan. Thus, Alexandre Aja has managed an effective film that successfully fulfills his objective: to keep the audience on the edge of the seat during 90 minutes.

A bit of a surprise and a tense and terrifying one at that. It knows what it is and because of that it's able to do what it does and do it well. Good looking Alligators.

Sometimes, all you need to relax and release stress from work or life in general is a simple but effective, entertaining and undemanding horror movie with giant animals and dumb dialogues! It gets even better when the insignificant little summer pic is helmed by one of the most talented and competent horror directors of the last fifteen years. None other than Alexandre Aja ("The Hills have Eyes", "Horns") traveled down to the Sunshine State for "Crawl"; - a derivative but nevertheless intense and nail-biting creature feature in which a couple of potent alligators complicate an already tough category-5 hurricane even more! In spite of numerous warnings to evacuate, young Haley drives back directly into the eye of the storm to look for her father who isn't answering her phone calls. They both end up trapped in the parental house's crawlspace, surrounded by massive alligators that are joyfully swimming free in the streets and houses due to the high water level. The added value of Alexandre Aja is that he definitely makes the most out of the claustrophobic settings, and that he ensures 4 or 5 effectively scary jump scares. The plot is obviously very thin and lends itself for various dreadful cliches and predictable situations. Naturally all the family feuds will become settled during this ordeal, and Haley (a trained and semi-professional swimmer) will be forced to break her own personal record time to escape from the gators. Do you doubt she'll make it? Also, since the two protagonists are most likely to survive, every other poor sucker that enters the scenes is doomed to be torn apart by the alligators, whether they are plundering punks or heroic rescue workers.