Crawl

My history with Alexandre Aja’s films is a mixed bag. Haute Tension (Switchblade Romance) is a fantastic film and I really loved the atmosphere and tone to it, and of course the gore and violence. Horns and Piranha 3D are generally ok in their own separate ways, but not reaching the seriousness of his earlier films. With Aja teaming up with Sam Raimi for Crawl I was immediately enticed.

And then I watched the trailer.

After being thoroughly excited for this film the trailer then seems to divulge far too much of the premise and some of the best action and tense moments. I felt like it was hardly worth watching it and then FrightFest came around. Opening night, 2nd film: Crawl. In a huge screen and with a knowledgable crowd (and an extremely jumpy person sitting next to me!) the atmosphere was fantastic.

And this fed through to my enjoyment of Crawl. I almost immediately found myself immersed into the film, felt the building tension as the storm grew closer and the situation worsened and appeared to have no solution, well for the humans anyway! Yes, this isn’t a highbrow or particularly deep (until later – see what I did there?) film, but it does what it does effectively and I really dug it. There are issues with the believability of it at times, which took me out of the experience once or twice, but the relentlessly advancing tension and ratcheting up of the pace worked really well to give me a viewing experience that will stay with me for a while yet.

Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper (and Sugar the dog) don’t have the best dialogue to work with but their performances do work effectively and, from what I’ve heard about the filming conditions, they should be commended for their work here.

So, in short, if you can leave your brain at the door, sit back and relax (if possible) and get into the experience of a decently made, well performed and enjoyable creature-feature you’ll definitely get something out of Crawl.