When a massive hurricane hits her Florida hometown, Haley (Kaya Scodelario) ignores evacuation orders to search for her missing father (Barry Pepper). Finding him gravely injured in the crawl space of their family home, the two become trapped by quickly encroaching floodwaters. As time runs out to escape the strengthening storm, Haley and her father discover that the rising water level is the least of their fears.
Plot: A young woman, while attempting to save her father during a category 5 hurricane, finds herself trapped in a flooding house and must fight for her life against alligators.
Director: Alexandre Aja
Aspect Ratio: 2.39.1
Runtime: 87 min
Rotten Tomatoes Consensus: An action-packed creature feature that’s fast, terrifying, and benefits greatly from a completely game Kaya Scodelario, Crawl is a fun throw-back with just enough self-awareness to work.
Online Ratings:
- Rotten Tomatoes 82%
- IMDB 6.4
- Metacritic 60
“A thrill ride where if the storm doesn’t get you, the alligators will.”
Review:
Let’s reiterate the plot again: as a category 5 hurricane tears through Florida, Haley rushes to find her father, who is injured and trapped in the crawl space of their home. With the storm intensifying and water levels rising, the pair face an even more terrifying threat lurking below the surface. When the first trailer came out for Crawl I was sold on the film — if you’ve followed this site you know that I’m a horror fan and while this isn’t spot on horror, it’s a thriller type of movie that fits in there somewhere if you want it to. You can call it a thriller-horror, right?
The only red-flag to me, personally, was the runtime of 87 minutes. When the total time (with credits) runs under an hour and half, it usually means it has a weak story that can’t carry. That’s not true with this 87 minute movie — it hits a fast pace and never slows down. You are in the thick of it with the main characters trying to survive, alias, getting out of that house, not only combating the storm, but the alligators too. For me, it was the right amount of time and story — no more was needed.
Sorry for the short review, but if I were to talk about this movie at any more depth we would get into spoilers, you know how these movies go. Let’s close it up like this; Crawl has some jump scares, a lot of suspense and it’s certified fresh from Rotten Tomatoes, so know going in that it’s a good, to the point, fast paced, solid popcorn movie. The acting isn’t bad, the directing works and everything flows — if you want something negative, the only thing I could say is there is some mindless logic at certain points, but what survival driven movie like this doesn’t?
When it comes to the money, Crawl had a budget of $13 million and ended up grossing a bit over $88 million. If you mix in the promotional budget and add more sales from the upcoming home video release, rentals, etc — you could easily say this tippled it’s profit. I’m not saying make a Crawl 2… we don’t need it. What I am saying is every movie doesn’t have to have a $300 million budget movie needing make a billion at the box office. Give us more of these.
It’s an easy recommendation, so head out to your local retailer and pick up a copy when it releases on Blu-ray & DVD October 15th or own it early on digital today!
Were you a fan of this movie? Will you be picking up a copy? Let me know what you think in the comments below.
Cheers,
Matt.
While your here, check out more of my 4K & Blu-ray reviews. Even more, see the newest trailers, press releases, music and more on the rest of the site. Follow me for faster updates on Twitter and Instagram.
