Missed this little horror gem when it was first hit theaters July 12, 2019. A year to the day, I watched CRAWL, and was pleasantly entertained by this low gore movie.
Directed by Alexandre Aja, starring Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper, the movie features some close-quarter interplay between humans, CGI killer alligators and mother nature in full fury.
Michael and Shawn Rasmussen wrote the screenplay. They did a nice job of making viewers empathize with the main characters. They offer a nice twist on the rescue-a-loved-one-during-a hurricane trope by pitting the central characters, a daughter and her father, against a flooding crawlspace and marauding alligators as the category 5 hurricane makes landfall in southern Florida.
I enjoyed the movie. Yeah, it made me roll my eyes a bit when some of the situations became too over the top to believe, but with a $13.5 million budget the cinematography was spot on – not jerky. The scenes weren’t dark to hide cheap sets or rubberized creatures, etc.
Some of the dialogue was cheesy, but we hear that a lot in movies today.
All in all, I’m a satisfied viewer. So much so, that I recommended CRAWL to family members who hadn’t seen it.
Box office gross was $91.5 million. Nice bit of cha-ching for Mike & Shawn, and everyone involved, including producer Sam Raimi.
So it you haven’t seen CRAWL, tune into this movie. It’s not a gore fest. It’s fun to watch.
