20260524-20190823-0-70735291
Critic's Rating: 3.5
Crawl Story: A father and daughter try to survive being attacked by alligators in a flooding basement during a hurricane.

Crawl Review: Haley Keller (Kaya Scodelario), an aspiring collegiate swimmer, finds out that a category five hurricane is fast approaching Florida. Her father Dave (Barry Pepper) lives in the path of the storm and is unreachable on the phone. Worried about his safety, Haley sets out to check on him despite the police warning her against it. She finds him unconscious in the flooding basement of the house; he has been attacked by alligators swimming in the waters. Haley needs to use her swimming skills to survive the cold-blooded reptiles and save her father.

The father-daughter relationship between Dave and Haley makes you care about these characters. You can understand why their relationship has become estranged over the years, which makes it gratifying to see them work together to survive. This is amplified by Kaya Scodelario as Haley and Barry Pepper as her father. Both are good in their roles and their chemistry anchors the film down to make their survival matter. Although the storyline is straightforward, the atmosphere invokes a sense of dread, and the pressure of Haley and Dave making it out alive is relentless.

The CGI is surprisingly good with the alligators – they never look fake, which helps to keep their constant threat intact. Some inconsistencies with the visual effects take you out of certain scenes with the hurricane. But the dangers of the powerful force of nature and the claustrophobia in the basement are maintained throughout. What hinders the film are its plot conveniences and clichés. Some characters are introduced with little or no consequence, other than to establish the ferocity of the alligators. A few jump scares are also predictable. Still, there are ample scary moments. The excellent chemistry between the lead actors and the sincerity in their performances will keep you invested in ‘Crawl’. Inspired by classic creature features, director Alexandre Aja doesn’t aim to do anything new for the genre but uses a strong setup and solid performances to deliver a tense and satisfying film for thrill-seekers.

Summary / Analysis

Spoiler alert! Please do not read the following plot summary if you have not seen the film.
Aspiring University of Florida swimmer Haley Keller receives a call from her sister, Beth who informs her that a Category 5 hurricane is on a collision course with Florida and advises her to get out of the state. Haley is concerned for the safety of her father Dave, as he is not answering his phone. Against the instructions of Florida State Police, Haley drives around evacuation routes to check in on Dave. She first goes to his condo, where he has been living since he and her mother divorced. Haley finds the family dog Sugar at the condo but not Dave himself and is worried that he has returned to the family home in Coral Lake, which he supposedly sold years ago.

Haley and Sugar navigate the flooded streets and find Dave's truck at the Coral Lake house. There, she descends into the crawl space underneath the house while leaving Sugar upstairs, and eventually finds her father unconscious and wounded. When she tries to drag him out, her exit is cut off by large and ravenous alligators that Dave believes got into the house via a storm drain open to the crawl space. The alligators are too large to fit around the pipes under the house, allowing Haley and Dave a safe area at the far end of the crawl space. However, the hurricane intensifies and the crawl space begins to flood, so Haley attempts to navigate around the alligators before she and her father drown.

While attempting to escape the crawl space and fending off the alligators, Haley drops her phone (which gets crushed by an alligator) and discovers that the secondary exit to the crawl space is blocked by a box on top of the hatch. She tries to contact a group of looters in a gas station opposite the house for help, but they get killed by alligators. She is also helpless to stop the alligators from attacking and killing two police officers who investigate the house for survivors. Dave manages to kill an alligator by splitting its head open with a shovel, but gets trapped. In a last-ditch effort to escape, Haley makes her way to the storm drain, where she discovers that the alligators have made their nest and laid eggs. Haley successfully kills the other alligator using a gun retrieved from the body of one of the police officers, shooting down the alligator's throat when it nearly bites her hand off and makes it upstairs, crow-barring the living room floor open and saving Dave from drowning in the basement.

Free of the crawl space, Haley, Dave and Sugar procure the looters' boat just as the eye of the hurricane moves over the neighborhood. However, the floodwaters break the nearby levees, flooding Coral Lake even more and crashing them back into the house, where they get separated. While Dave and Sugar make their way up the stairs, Haley navigates around the kitchen and uses a discarded police radio to broadcast a distress signal to authorities.

After retrieving a set of road flares and saving Sugar from being attacked, Dave loses an arm to one of the alligators, Haley attempts to flag down a rescue helicopter from an upstairs bedroom but is attacked by another alligator, which attempts to drown her in a death roll. While Dave and Sugar escape to the attic, Haley stabs the alligator in the eye with a flare and attempts to swim to the roof from the outside of the house, narrowly avoiding being mauled by a fourth alligator before it gets swept away. Haley lights a flare and flags down the rescue helicopter as Dave and Sugar watch.

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FAQs
  1. What is the release date of 'Crawl'?
    Release date of Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper starrer 'Crawl' is 2019-08-23.
  2. Who are the actors in 'Crawl'?
    'Crawl' star cast includes Kaya Scodelario, Barry Pepper, Morfydd Clark and Ami Metcalf.
  3. Who is the director of 'Crawl'?
    'Crawl' is directed by Alexandre Aja.
  4. Who is the producer of 'Crawl'?
    'Crawl' is produced by Alexandre Aja.
  5. What is Genre of 'Crawl'?
    'Crawl' belongs to 'Horror,Action,Drama' genre.
  6. In Which Languages is 'Crawl' releasing?
    'Crawl' is releasing in English.