CRAWL
Director: Alexandre Aja
imdb
CRAWL
Director: Alexandre Aja
imdb
I'm not sure what I was expecting, but those low expectations were not met.
I'm shocked this got theatrical distribution. It should easily be a movie that you skip over at Netflix among many other horror movies that try to imitate others.
I'm glad Barry Pepper is still acting. Hope he gets better work.
Well, I'm not sure what you were expecting either, I personally had a blast. First Aja film I've really liked, since I'm one of those guys who think High Tension's twist ending retroactively kills the movie. I mean, it's a Horror film about surviving an encounter with crocodiles. I was just happy it was short, well written and taut.
You're correct. And it's a twist I saw coming 2 miles away. On repeat viewing, it's so disappointing he took that route when the non-twist version wouldve been plenty scary and satisfying.Quoting Grouchy (view post)
Vote is 2-2.
I heard good word of mouth so I need a tiebreaker here.
Aja is a mixed bag but there was enough about "High Tension" that was truly great that he always deserves at least a glance. (But Grouchy is right about the ending.)
I just thought this movie was relentlessly lame from start to finish. At no point did it even begin to win me over. *shrug*
It’s one of the most maddening twist endings I have ever seen.Quoting Irish (view post)
The entire movie is broken by a completely failed attempt to be clever.
If it had stayed a straight forward slasher flick, it would have been one of the best out there.
Yep, totally agree. Dude ruined his own movie. Which fucking kills me because the slasher elements are really damned good. But the lame twist consumes the film & from the day it was released until today, it's all anyone talks about.Quoting megladon8 (view post)
Forgot how High Tension ended...
I had fun with this for it's duration. It doesnt have the character work of other films in its subgenre, but it makes good use of its runtime, crafts effective suspense throughout & the creature effects are awesome. Another successful grindhouse blockbuster from Paramount in my eyes.
Last Five Films I've Seen (Out of 5)
The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse (Mackesy, 2022) 4.5
Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (Crawford, 2022) 4
Confess, Fletch (Mottola, 2022) 3.5
M3GAN (Johnstone, 2023) 3.5
Turning Red (Shi, 2022) 4.5
Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953) 5
615 Film
Letterboxd
[]Quoting Ezee E (view post)
Nitpick.Quoting Grouchy (view post)
[]
I stand by this being a good movie.
Also, anticipating this movie on VOD, I watched Rogue. Decent. Not great. Not terrible.
Weirdly not very stylish for an Aja film and thus my least favorite that I've seen so far from him (High Tension >= The Hill Have Eyes > Piranha > this), but still lean, mean straightforward creature feature fun. And I kind of adore how it ends, which feels exemplary of the film's no-frills attitude, dispensing with any sappy epilogue typical of this genre and sending you out the doors once it's done delivering the goods. 6/10
Midnight Run (1988) - 9
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) - 8.5
The Adventures of Robinhood (1938) - 8
Sisters (1973) - 6.5
Shin Godzilla (2016) - 7.5
3-2!
Renting it.
Yeah. This was a mistake.
Since Aja already did his bit with "Piranha 3D," I wonder why he felt the need to make this.
I guess my biggest beef is that the movie had a good start and a great premise, but then didn't capitalize on either. Too many of the beats were formulaic. (Although, I did like that the lead chick resents both her father and her sister, but goes to check on Dad after a phone call from Sis.)
The rest of it ... meh. They showed the gators too early and they didn't look that good. For a monster to work the fucking monster must be interesting (a lesson I thought Aja woulda learned with the aforementioned "Piranha"). The gators here have no personality, and I couldn't tell one from the other. They're the villains and there isn't anything special about them.
Aside from that the setting was cool but too limiting (and also visually boring). I didn't expect much but because that cellar / crawlspace was so generic I could never tell where one character was in relation to the other, or the gators, or the outside. It made the movie more confusing, and less interesting, than necessary.
Granted, my expectations were higher than normal because I was really hoping for another fun knock-off like that Blake Lively shark movie.
The Blake Lively movie was one of the bigger surprises in quite a while. Utilized more than the shark... Something that Crawl didn't really do.
Awe man. I wanted to like this really bad. Totally agree with Irish's assessment. It started off totally fine and just went nowhere.
I liked Rogue a lot, actually. Prob wont see this for a while.
"How is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home wine-making course and forgot how to drive?"
--Homer
Sounds like I’ll wait until this is in the bargain bin.
..,and I like Haute Tension.
“What we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, er... an eating machine. It's really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks and that's all.”
I caved and picked this up.
I’m glad I did. I expected a creature flick, and I got a great creature flick.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to contemplate going ‘gator hunting.
“What we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, er... an eating machine. It's really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks and that's all.”
I really want to try gator meat.