One of the most surprisingly thrilling and entertaining films of the year has made its way to home video. Crawl comes from producer Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, those Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies) and director Alexandre Aja (The Hills Have Eyes). Those two filmmakers sure know how to make our heart rate elevate. After spending 90 minutes witnessing how a father and daughter struggle to get the better of an army of alligators—all while a Category 5 hurricane bears down on them—is blissfully bodacious.
Kaya Scodelario (The Maze Runner) is Haley, who as our film commences is passionately swimming with her fellow Gators (nice touch, don’t you think?!) as they prepare for the University of Florida’s next match. When she gets out of the pool, she is greeted by a phone call from her sister wondering if Haley has heard from their father Dave (Barry Pepper). See, that pesky hurricane is on its way and pops is right in its path. Given that he is not picking up his phone, the siblings start to worry. Haley decides to hop in the car and drive right into the perilous zone, hoping for answers as to what happened to dear old dad. As was seen in the Crawl trailer, dad is alive and kicking, he’s just trapped in the crawl space (get it?!) of the home the girls grew up in. Haley finds him bloodied, bruised and unconscious. He comes to, but will need medical attention. Why? Well, it probably has something to do with the overtly aggressive alligators.
What happens over the next sensational and succinct 87 minutes is a study in fortitude, survival and what to do if you are ever in the midst of a Category 5 hurricane and alligators are hungry. I joke, but seriously what Haley and her dad do to avoid the gators, better the gators and hopefully kill those gators before they get killed is a masterclass in thrill-ride filmmaking.
It should not be surprising, given the pedigree that accompanies this feature. I mean, Aja took a film that didn’t need a remake (The Hills Have Eyes) and handed audiences a remake they never knew they couldn’t live without. Then, there’s Raimi, whose resume is lit up with thrills, horror and far-reaching entertainment whose subject matters run the spectrum. Still, this film’s July 12 release date arrived, and expectations were somewhere between low and non-existent. After all, summer movie season is inhabited with big budget, tent-pole sequels, reboots, remakes and anything that can have a Roman numeral next to it or possess a title that already is firmly embedded in the zeitgeist. Solid reviews ensued and then that Midas touch that every studio dreams of started raining down on the country as piercing as those raindrops in Crawl’s torturous hurricane … word of mouth.
Several factors speak to answering the question: Why is Crawl so darn fun?
First, the entire film truly rests on the shoulders of Scodelario. She is essentially in every single scene. There is something terribly unique about the actress that is hard to put a finger on (that in and of itself could explain a lot about her success). Audiences love movie stars, but filmmakers adore thespians who can lose themselves in a role and that is exactly what Scodelario does in spades with Crawl. We cheer for her. We want her to succeed. There is honestly not much known about Haley, other than her aquatic gifts and that her father used to be her coach and biggest cheerleader. It is then fully on the actress to pull in the audience, not only to her and her perilous situation, but for the entire film as well.
Second, without much exposition (thank goodness, films too often give us too much of that stuff and as a result, forward momentum is lost—a death knell for a film in this genre. What is front and center is not only an innate father-daughter concern and connection, but one that is obviously strained and how this traumatic situation brings them together and plays upon their decades-long relationship—for better or worse. We’ve already established that Scodelario is sensational, but what makes her so special here is the cinematic chemistry she shares with Pepper. Earlier I stated that we cheer for her. In fact, we are cheering for this daddy-daughter duo to get the better of these prehistoric beasts from hell.
The bonus features will only add to the adoration one has for this film. Crawl Blu-Ray possesses 45 minutes of extras that achieves several things. It answers those “how did they do that?” questions and further enlightens us to the delightful personalities of those behind that onscreen chemistry.
For starters, there is an alternate opening to the ferocious film, introduced by Aja that is excellently enhanced by an exclusive motion comic. It’s an interesting insight into the storyteller that illustrates his impressive talent. The alternative opening scene is frightening and heart-popping, but … it has little connection to the overall emotive elements of the film and therefore, it wound up on the cutting room floor.
The making-of featurette arrives with Beneath Crawl. Clocking in at an impressive (for its in-depth look at the artistic creation of an alligator-centric thrill fest) 30 minutes, viewers get a front row seat to how Aja, Raimi and the entire ensemble managed to pull this thing off, to the delight of anyone who gets to witness its manic majesty. Among the most fascinating aspects is how challenges were overcome. After all, making movies featuring raging amounts of water has a long history in Hollywood that is not inhabited with success (Waterworld, anyone?). This featurette puts the viewer on the set as that, and many other issues, are addressed and triumphantly conquered.
A terrific featurette removes the Oz-like curtain and shows us how those monsters were created, utilized and employed during the making of Aja’s hit. Category 5 Gators: The VFX of Crawl will blow your mind! On one hand, we keenly know that those alligators are not real—no studio or filmmaker would dare put their actors and beasts that live to kill in the same room! Many times, films have shot “real” gators and incorporated the footage with the actors. This time out, those sharp-toothed prehistoric animals were brought to life via software on a computer. How that was achieved and the minute of details that were paid to making sure it felt real, is revealed in the most riveting of ways.
As if those moments where Haley and her dad come face to face with the gators were not enough to raise your heartbeat, relive them in a supercut of action that I had to watch twice in a row as it was too much fun. Alligator Attacks could have been the title of the movie, but instead it (thankfully) is simply the moniker for all those gator battles in one deftly edited highlight reel.
Film Grade: A
Bonus Features: A