I love all things horror especially a great monster or killer animal flick. The latest Crawl starring Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper brings both the natural disaster element and killer alligators to the mix for what could be a ton of fun. With Alexandre Aja, director of one of my all-time favorites High Tension at the helm and Evil Dead mastermind Sam Raimi producing it is in good hands. Could this flick offer up some scares and fun or will it get washed away?

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Crawl follows Haley who ignores evacuation orders to search for her missing father after a massive hurricane hits her Florida hometown. Finding him gravely injured in the crawl space of their family home, the two become trapped by quickly encroaching floodwaters. As time runs out to escape the strengthening storm, Haley and her father discover that the rising water level is the least of their fears. I was already excited to see this film strictly due to Aja’s involvement, but add to the mix gators on a rampage I knew it had potential to be something fun and I was not wrong.

 

This is a tight fun and intense horror/action flick that works all around. The premise and set up works perfectly and entertains from beginning to end. Once we get passed the initial set up and the two leads together it is a fast paced ride right until the end. There are a few other people popping in and out, but this film is all on the shoulders of Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper. They both have great chemistry together bringing the needed relationship as father and daughter together as well as they terror they have to endure.

 

There are a few jump moments, but thankfully it’s not played up for so much of that element and instead its man vs. beast right out the gate. They do some great things with the gators and loved that they kept a more realistic approach with them instead of going some monsterous route. They are great fun to watch in every way and my only complaint is that it wasn’t longer to