{"id":43840,"date":"2019-07-15T10:00:24","date_gmt":"2019-07-15T14:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=43840"},"modified":"2019-07-15T10:00:39","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T14:00:39","slug":"crawl-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2019\/07\/crawl-movie-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Crawl \u2013 Movie review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Bob Garver<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u201cCrawl\u201d\nis a horror movie with a simple enough premise: Haley (Kaya Scodelario) has to rescue\nher father (Barry Pepper) from the basement of their Florida home during a\nhurricane. Obstacles include steadily rising flood waters, the impending threat\nof a surge of water if a levee breaks, the father\u2019s injury from an alligator\nattack, and of course the alligators themselves. It\u2019s mostly about the gators,\nwith the hurricane not helping. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is definitely a\n\u201ccreature feature,\u201d where the villain is an animal or group of animals that\nwants to chow down on our heroes. The king is the genre is \u201cJaws,\u201d which like\nthis movie primarily takes place in water. Humans may rule the land, but\npredatory animals rule the two-thirds of the planet that is covered in water,\nso who\u2019s really in charge? The shark in \u201cJaws\u201d can be easily avoided as long as\npeople stay out of the water (\u201cbut it\u2019s tourist season and that\u2019s not an\noption!\u201d), but the hurricane in this movie helpfully brings the water to our\nheroes, and the setting becomes less and less their domain as the movie\nprogresses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As creature feature\nantagonists go, the alligators in this movie are\u2026 average, maybe a notch or two\nbelow. The CGI isn\u2019t terribly convincing, these particular gators are dumb and\nclumsy (grown-woman Haley and her father are safe behind a pipe that the gators\ncan\u2019t circumvent), and just on a personal level, alligators don\u2019t scare me that\nmuch. I figure they can be fought off with a good stomp or two, though this\nmovie wisely traps its heroes in the title type of space where they have to\nmaneuver using the title type of motion, restricting their movements and\nputting them in prime position for alligator attacks, which makes my skin do\nthe title action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The movie needs to\nestablish that the gators are deadly, but the main cast is just two people (and\na dog whose chances are not what I would call \u201cgreat\u201d). The solution is to\nthrow in three people looting a gas station across from the house and a pair of\ncops who have to go looking for Haley and her father after she violates a\nroadblock. I felt bad for the cops, as they arguably never should have been put\nin danger, but I\u2019m fine with rooting for the gators against the looters. The\nfilm\u2019s preferred method of killing is to have people dragged under the water,\nfollowed by blood bubbling to the surface. The exception is one poor chap who very\nclearly gets torn limb from limb, with \u201cfrom limb\u201d being needed about six more\ntimes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weirdly, this movie\nseems like it only decided at the last minute that it wanted an R rating. It\ncould have gotten a PG-13 relatively easily by dialing back the red food\ncoloring and cutting some gratuitous swearing out of a single scene. As it is,\nit\u2019s more deserving of an R than \u201cAnnabelle Comes Home\u201d (where the most violent\nthing is a second-long look at a car crash victim), but I have to wonder if\nappealing to adults who want a more visceral experience is worth sacrificing\nthe teen audience that could have turned out in larger numbers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCrawl\u201d is successful\nin playing into fears about claustrophobia, pressure, failure, murky waters,\nslimy surfaces, and maybe alligators if that flips your trigger. It doesn\u2019t\npack too much of a punch, but I can at least say that it\u2019s the best horror movie\nin theaters right now. \u201cAnnabelle Comes Home\u201d is just the \u201cConjuring\u201d\nfranchise\u2019s bland leftovers, and don\u2019t buy into the hype surrounding the\nwell-shot but undaunting \u201cMidsommar.\u201d But there\u2019s no reason to go out of your\nway to see this movie unless you need to fill the gap between obligatory\nviewings of \u201cSpider-Man: Far from Home\u201d last week and \u201cThe Lion King\u201d next\nweek. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade: C<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCrawl\u201d is rated R for bloody\ncreature violence, and brief language. Its running time is 87 minutes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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