Crawl

Une belle aventure numérique avec une progression décente de tension et une utilisation imprévisible de l'espace restreint. L'intrigue, apparemment transparente au début, sur une nageuse habile et sa relation avec son père qui a besoin d'être guéri, se révèle finalement être un « survival-horror » honnêtement écrit et réalisé. Plus captivant d'une demi-étoile que le film Instinct de survie, dont le thème est similaire. (26/08/2019)

In the service of the mainstream, Aja vainly recalls his glorious beginnings while wondering where he lost his balls over the years. (29/09/2019)

Shot in Serbia, this American film, two-thirds of which is set in the basement of an old house, is better than average. Despite its B-movie subject matter, it does not look cheap and offers very solid CGI with animals that do not appear to be digitally generated. Starting with the opening credits, director Alexandre Aja does not squander a single minute and constantly portions out information about the characters and the relationships between them, which later proves to be opportune (almost all of the characters and objects encountered by the female protagonist during the brisk exposition are utilised just as economically). The protagonists are not just walking hunks of meat for the alligators. We understand their motivations and cheer them on, and we comprehend where, despite all of the scars, they find in themselves the strength to grit their teeth and face danger. The overcoming of family trauma is skilfully connected with the eco-horror plot also thanks to the fact that the house where most of the events take place brings the heroine’s childhood, and thus her father’s failure, to light. Its flooding with water (thanks to which Halley can show what works best for her) and its gradual disintegration thus represents an inevitable part of “family therapy”. It is true that the story faulters during longer dialogues, the characters are far too clichéd and, given the R-rating, I would have expected more scenes in which alligators tear people to pieces, but when it reminds us in its entertaining and undemanding way that if we want to survive, we should mainly respect nature, then it works nicely. 65% (10/07/2019)

Easygoing, animal attack summer nonsense. An alligator survival taking place during a category-5 hurricane looks good on paper, especially with Aja behind the cameras a Raimi as producer. That would be, of course, if these gentlemen had taken it with more darkness and horror. Crawl, unfortunately, doesn’t have much balls, which is surprising given Aja’s history. The gore is missing, everything is hidden either in the dark or behind curtains of splashing water. The alligators sometimes look a bit artificial, but not much. What is horrifying, though, are the dialogues between the father and the daughter. Brr! (11/07/2019)

A suspenseful horror film about two heroes who find themselves trapped in a basement with hungry alligators during a hurricane. Clever and interesting characters, well built tension and some pretty gritty scenes make Crawl a very fine genre entertainment. Too bad it turns from horror to action B-movie at the end. (13/07/2019)

Nobody wanted Aja to make Jaws with a crocodile, but… This mess, which is neither serious and suspenseful enough to be, well, "serious", nor is it stupid and over-the-top enough to work at least as guilty pleasure (such moments are, unfortunately, very rare), is nothing more than a genre dullard seen hundreds of times without any charge, idea or adrenaline. (10/07/2019)

Alexandre Aja is back on the scene after a long time with survival film featuring an alligator that, together with Rogue, is one of the best things you can find with alligators. It has a fast pace, a decent amount of suspense, believable alligators that command respect every time they're on the scene, and there's a bit of gore, even if most of it is hidden underwater. I genuinely enjoyed myself and with how miserable has been in horror, I'm not ashamed to give it 4 stars. 70% (03/09/2019)

Quentin Tarantino declared Crawl to be his favorite movie this year and I understand why. The simple story of a swimmer/daughter in a flood zone in Florida looking for her dad whom she can’t get in touch with has more to it than it seems at the beginning. Although this tense horror chase movie with a dramatic foundation comprising the dad/daughter relationship turns into a classic B-movie in the end, the heroes aren’t dumb and are played well (with Kaya Scodelario giving an unbelievable performance), and there are abundant bloody surprises. (05/11/2019)

It wasn't entirely bad, but I feel like Alexandre Aja can't make a suspenseful scene and is all about the blood. It's a shame, because if I'd worried about the main characters just slightly more than their dog, it would have been better for sure. (03/04/2020)

A bland feeding of deadly predators that won’t offend any connoisseur of the genre, but may cause some harmless grumble in their bellies if they think about Alexandre Aja’s early and very uncompromising stuff. Piranha 3D, albeit a colossal insanity, was a lot more fun and bold as a movie. Crawl sticks to its characters and manages to bring the viewer close, but it’s unable to sell the threat of the alligator in a naturalistic or tense enough way. But it’s a fine flick nevertheless, with pretty good actors and a good director that used to be great, which in this case is a real shame. (14/10/2019)

Crawl m’a procuré exactement ce à quoi je m’attendais de la part d’un film d’horreur de crocodiles au cinéma. Peut-être même qu’Alexandre Aja a légèrement dépassé mes attentes, car il a créé une aventure de style survie à la fois divertissante et dans laquelle il se passe constamment quelque chose. Le scénario laisse à désirer (ce qui n’est pas surprenant si vous connaissez la filmographie des frères Rasmussen) et n’importe qui remarquera – à raison – que la plupart des personnages secondaires ne sont là que pour se faire massacrer. Malgré tout, ce film d’horreur estival a rempli toutes mes attentes et je me suis bien éclaté en le regardant. Après Piranha 3D, Aja a pu une nouvelle fois exploiter un thème bidon au maximum et y coller une sérieuse dose de suspense et de fun. Et ça faisait longtemps que je n’avais plus entendu une musique aussi exaltante dans un générique de fin. (18/07/2019)

Crawl doesn't set out to be an animal horror film that in any way stands out from the ranks within its genre, but that's not to say that it's bland through and through. As far as the technical workmanship goes, the film features realistically rendered scenes with alligators that hardly look artificial at all. Unlike Alexandre Aja's Piranha 3D, there are no hectolitres of blood in this case and the film also focuses on family and the relationship between the daughter and the father. They could have toned down a bit on this relationship line and added more dark, horror scenes, though there were a few good scares. All that being said, this is a thrilling piece that will surely keep the inhabitants of the alligator areas away from waterlogged places for some time, and which I would compare in quality to 2016's The Shallows. (14/07/2019)

I can still remember as a kid hypnotizing alligators through glass in the zoo, waiting for dozens of long minutes to see if the lazy bastards, for whom I'd been taught a lot of movie respect, were capable of any movement at all. They weren't, not even when tropical toads set up a party tent on their backs, a hummingbird landed here and there, a snake slithered underneath, well, just nothing, barren emptiness, apathy, disinterest, eat me. Since then, I've viewed any film that tries to convince me that this unremarkable animal actually moves, or more to the point, might signal danger to someone, with considerable suspicion. I like Aja and his band of allied make-up artists. I like him even in his films, which I don't find very good, because he's one of the most adept at evoking a sense of imminent danger, and the setting, with the water level rising in a musty basement, several hungry lizards circling, and a fierce hurricane raging overhead, is just right for him. However, we're still talking about an hour and a half on the surface of a single house, where it was often necessary to stretch and tack on scenes to get the film over an hour, when it's precisely because of this running time that we're forced to focus increasingly on the crystal clear glacier water from the mountains that is flooding the Florida house, not to mention the alligators deliberately leaping through the glass windows. Aja was able to get the most out of it, but as far as subject matter goes, he's really whipping the shit out of this one. (08/10/2019)

A bloody 4 stars for the really sharp gore scenes and the appealing Kaya Scodelario. Overall, Crawl is a very decently made survival thriller with no shortage of blood and water. The script is of course purely mediocre, but would anyone really want to watch one of the characters become deeply philosophical and self-reflective in a situation like this? After all, those awkward lizards there would have dismembered them before they could even make a real apology. The only major complaint I have is perhaps the health of the two main characters, who remained in admirable condition even after repeated alligator attacks. See you later, alligator. (12/08/2019)