Crawl is a 2019 horror film produced & directed by Alexandre Aja (High Tension, The Hills Have Eyes, Mirrors, Horns, & Piranha 3D). It was produced by filmmaker Sam Raimi (Evil Dead franchise, Darkman franchise, The Grudge franchise, 30 Days of Night, Drag me to Hell, Don’t Breathe, Poltergeist, M.A.N.T.I.S., & American Gothic). It was written by Michael & Shawn Rasmussen (The Ward, Dark Feed, Long Distance, & The Inhabitants). It was inspired by a true story. The budget was $13.5 million & it grossed $89.9 million worldwide at the box office!!!! Aspiring University of Florida swimmer Haley Keller (played by: Kaya Scodelario from The Maze Runner franchise, Moon, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Spinning Out, & Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile) receives a call from her sister Beth (played by: Morfydd Clark from Dracula, The Alienist, & Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) who informs her that Category 5 Hurricane Wendy is on a collision course with Florida. She advises her to get out of the state. Haley is concerned for the safety of her father Dave (played by: Barry Pepper from The Green Mile, Saving Private Ryan, 61*, True Grit, Seven Pounds, & 25th Hour) since he is not answering his phone.
Against the instructions of Florida State Police which includes her sister’s ex Wayne (played by: Ross Anderson from Macbeth, Unbroken, & Legends), Haley drives around evacuation routes to check in on him. She first goes to his condo, where he has been living since he & her mother divorced. Haley finds the family dog Sugar at the condo but not Dave himself & she gets worried that he has returned to the family home in Coral Lake which he supposedly sold years ago. Haley & Sugar navigate the flooded streets and find Dave’s truck at the Coral Lake house. She descends into the crawl space underneath the house, she finds her father unconscious & wounded. Haley tries to drag Dave away to safety until they run into a huge alligator. They are trapped underneath fighting for their lives against the massive creature. Every time someone gets near to help, they get attacked & mangled. As time goes on, more alligators surround the isolated family. Can they survive this disaster or will they become victims of the deadly reptiles????
Crawl is one of the best horror films of 2019! I love the killer animal sub-genre & this is definitely one of the better ones in recent years especially for alligators. When this was first announced, I was hoping it wouldn’t be some big budget SYFY style flick but it was so much better than that. It mixes a few different genres for Crawl including horror, survival, disaster, & killer animals like I mentioned above. As far as suspense & thrills go, this feature delivers on every level. It’s very intense & you really feel the isolation here. A few characters pop up every once in awhile but it’s essentially a two person movie. Both Kaya Scodelario & Barry Pepper were amazing in Crawl. They had a very realistic chemistry as a family with issues & two people that haven’t connected in a long time. They put all that aside & became stronger together as the situation got worse. They bonded & fought for each other when no one else would. I did enjoy the addition of their pet Sugar in this. The visual & special fx were mind blowing here, I couldn’t believe how great everything looked in this production. The script plus the acting were well crafted & directed, it grabbed your attention the whole time. It was beyond fun & entertaining experience. It actually gets better with each revisit so the replay value is strong with this. Crawl is not only one of my favorite horror films of 2019, it’s just one of the best features for the entire year. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!!
Let’s talk about the high definition presentation from Paramount Pictures!!!! This 1080p (2.39:1) transfer takes full advantage of it’s disastrous & isolated locations. This hybrid of sub-genre looks great & makes you feel trapped like the two leads here. It has a variety of audio options which includes English: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1, Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1, French (Canada): Dolby Digital 5.1, Japanese: Dolby Digital 5.1, Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1, & Thai: Dolby Digital 5.1 on this release. It has various different subtitles including English, English SDH, French, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Cantonese, Hindi, Korean, Malay, Mandarin (Simplified), & Thai. Both picture & sound are very impressive plus it’s loaded with all kinds of language choices for the feature so it’s great for all over the world!
Let’s discuss the special features from Paramount on this release! “Intro to Alternate Opening” is under a minute & it’s an introduction from the director talking about the different beginning. “Alternate Opening” is almost 5 minutes. It’s a motion comic. 3 “Deleted and Extended Scenes” that’s a little over 6 minutes & it includes I Guess I’m Off the Team, You Were Never Going to Evacuate, & Don’t Quit on Me. I can see why these were left off the final version but it’s still a cool extra to have. “Beneath Crawl” is a little over 28 minutes. It has interviews with director Alexandre Aja, producer Sam Raimi, writers Shawn Rasmussen, Michael Rasmussen, actors Barry Pepper, Kaya Scodelario, & various members of the production. They chat about how they got attached to the project. The writers talk about coming up with the script & how creepy crawlspaces are already without the alligators. Sam Raimi tells a story about contacting Alexandre Aja for a movie a long time ago but he did The Hills Have Eyes remake with Wes Craven instead. He says it’s been one of his dreams to work with the director on a feature & Crawl was the perfect opportunity. They bring up the cast & their amazing chemistry. The actors mention some stuff they brought to the role that made it more personal. Kaya Scodelario looks & sounds nothing like her character for this in real life, she really transformed herself into this role. It takes you behind the scenes on location & it shows the set before they were finished. It gives you a inside look of them filming it in rough conditions. The cast & crew shares their experience going through that process. They go over the various fx that helped make the situation more intense. “Category 5 Gators: The VFX of Crawl” is almost 12 minutes. It has interviews with director Alexandre Aja, producer Sam Raimi, & various members of the production. It takes you behind the scenes & goes into great detail about the visual fx for the production. They chat about all the different alligators & they made a point to make them stand out from each other. They talk about not doing the cliche marked alligator as the main villain. It shows the various actors & professionals that stepped in to make the CGI process much easier when it came to the killer animals. They chat with the special fx artist & props get shown off from various attacks from Crawl. “Alligator Attacks” is almost 2 minutes & it has some of the best brutal moments from Crawl in it. It also has a slipcover, a digital code, & a DVD copy of the release. It’s available everywhere right now, CHECK IT OUT!!!!
