Movie Review: Crawl (2019)

Synopsis: When a dangerous hurricane hits her Florida hometown and she can't reach her father, Haley decides to search for him instead of ignoring various warnings not to. When she finds him unconscious in the basement, she attempts to rescue him but learns their escape is blocked by a pair of large alligators. With no help on the way and the basement flooding with rainwater, they realize they either need to get past the creatures or drown.

Who's in it? The movie stars Kaya Scodelario, Barry Pepper, Morfydd Clark, Ross Anderson and Jose Palma.

Review: I am always a little skeptical about horror movies that feature killer animals because, while there are admittedly some good films, most tend to be a bit predictable and dull. As a result, I was a little hesistant to watch this movie last night and mostly only picked it because it had a shorter run time than my other choices.

Was this the best horror movie I have ever seen? No. However, it did turn out to be better than I thought.

I think the thing I liked best about this film was the utterly hopeless situation Haley (Scodelario) and her dad (Pepper) seemed to be in. Had it not been for the basement flooding, they could have simply waited out the hungry animals but the hurricane outside gave them an additional obstacle against a pair of alligators that knew their prey was trapped and seemed content to wait them out rather than going after something a little easier, such as their dog waiting at the top of the stairs.

The movie also managed to toy with the characters' emotions as well, making it look like they were going to be rescued or giving them an alternative way to escape on their own only to have it not work out at the last second. Not a lot of horror movies manage to do that right.

My only real complaint about the movie was the decision to throw in family drama at various points. It would have been one thing to have Haley and her dad air their dirty laundry early on in the movie, when the characters were being introduced. Having them bring up things like her dad divorcing her mom, not attending her swim meets in college and being too hard on her when he was her coach just seemed a bit out of place once they were either going to drown, be eaten or both. It was the kind of thing that could have made a lesser movie unwatchable.

Final Opinion: There were some parts that were a bit predictable but, overall, I thought this was an entertaining movie. As I said, it wasn't the best I've ever watched but it was still good enough.

My Grade: B