Alexandre Aja’s Crawl (2019) is a dark, tense, and claustrophobic animal horror film. It delivers on its promise of alligator attacks, scary scenes (I even shrieked once in the theater), and visceral horror. Its premise is simple: a young woman, Haley (Kaya Scodelario), drives to her family home to find her father, Dave (Barry Pepper), as a Category 5 hurricane approaches. When she arrives, she finds him unconscious and injured in the crawl space beneath the house after an alligator attack.

Because the premise is so simple, if what it describes is what you want from the film, you will be satisfied. Most of the film takes place in the cramped, dark basement as Haley and her father try to keep from being eaten by the invading alligators and make it out of the slowly (and then more and more quickly) flooding space before they drown. This setting and premise allow for lots of close calls and slow, building tension. The tension is amplified by the darkness of the space and the murkiness of the water, neither of which is ever so dark or murky that you can’t tell what’s happening. Aja is clearly invested in the alligator attacks themselves, and they are frightening and impressive. (Brian Fanelli’s Horror Homeroom post about the film provides excellent commentary on the film’s success in these terms.) Read more