Went to see this yesterday, also at Zack's encouragement.  

At a running time of just under ninety minutes I knew I couldn't go wrong really. Penned by writers, Michael and Shawn Rasmussen, and directed by Alexandre Aja (The Hills Have Eyes, Mirrors etc.) this was a decent ride.

This is essentially a popcorn matinee monster movie (don't go in expecting Citizen Kane) but it was thoroughly enjoyable. Solid acting all round (even the dog), a lesson in how to ramp up suspense , and wow, what CGI can now produce in terms of realism - thoroughly convincing gators and the hurricane visuals are stunning.

You could pick umpteen holes in the plot if you want to spoil the fun.
But... If you enjoy suspense, a movie with a short run-time, and some fun escapism, go see this.

Thanks, Zack.

Glad you enjoyed it, Libby. I've heard nothing but good things. Hopefully I get a chance to see it this weekend.

Yeah, thumbs up from me. What Libby said. Just good solid fun.

I'm of the mind these types of movies don't need to be that good to be effective. All they need for my money is decent creature effects (and hopefully some gore) and to not be too dumb. Characters don't need to be great. Give them some stuff to do/don't make me hate them and I'm good.

In that sense, I thoroughly enjoyed this. It was dumber than I expected, but that didn't bother me too much (just don't say I ever called this movie smart). I've heard some complaints about the acting/dialogue. All I can say is: what did you expect? Go watch something by the Coen bros. if you wanna rag of creature features for not having memorable characters.

There's definitely better version of this movie to be imagined where all the little annoying things (poor character decisions, "walking off" life-threatening injuries, etc.) are scrubbed. Something in particular that bugged me is that when you see flood footage on the news or what have you involving people, you tend to see people trudging through waste-high waters just trying to get out of there. In the world of Crawl, you would never see that footage; folks would just be getting wasted by alligators. But the film does deliver on the promises of its trailer, which I constitute as having lived up to its genre duties.

Don't be dumb like the characters. If you're not into creature features, that's cool. But I'd suggest having reasonable expectations if you want to avoid feeling like you wasted your money.

Definitely loved seeing it as well.

YES you can find a handful of things the writers did that make you say WHA??? But everything was good enough to work.. and the alligators were actually done pretty well IMO.

Quoted from LC Solid acting all round (even the dog), a lesson in how to ramp up suspense , and wow, what CGI can now produce in terms of realism - thoroughly convincing gators and the hurricane visuals are stunning. You could pick umpteen holes in the plot if you want to spoil the fun. But... If you enjoy suspense, a movie with a short run-time, and some fun escapism, go see this.

Caught up on a few horrors this weekend, this was by far the worst. What a complete turd of a movie.

"Solid acting all round"????? I honestly can’t tell if your being serious, this is so over acted it’s not funny. One thing I will agree on is that the dog's acting was solid; he out-shone every one of his human co-stars.

SPOILERS - I think

Something that always bugs me in film is that they can produce pretty good looking alligators and storms but replicating realistic CPR is a step too far.

We started watching this thinking it was going to be a relatively good film, but about 20 minutes in we realised that wasn’t the case and started yelling abuse at the screen.

I personally think they need to build a franchise around the dad. The guy has a through and through broken leg, loses an arm, literally dies but never loses his can do attitude.

The whole swimming aspect was dumb AF!! A few minutes in I asked, "Is this all being set up for the sole purpose of her out swimming an alligator?" - 40 minutes later "yes, yes it is."

Also what’s wrong with these alligators? Every 5 minutes the rules applying to them changes. Are this guy’s deaf, blind and dumb, I mean come on!!!!

This is almost a so-bad-it’s good-movie but generally I return to those, I won’t be coming back to this.

If you want to see some of the worst acting imaginable and what on the nose dialogue looks like on screen check this out, otherwise just stay clear.

Did we watch the same movie, Libby????

Also the whole Apex preditor thing, cringe.

  Bah-humbug,  Hey, not just me...

Warren, I have a feeling your expectations might have been set a little high.
I also think the cinema experience often makes the difference.

Loved it!

Really bummed I didn't get a chance to see this in theaters. It's more or less exactly what I wanted it to be. A dumb, fun/intense creature feature. I had an absolute blast with this flick!

About what you would expect.

One thing this movie did right was the strong female character. She was believable. The part was cast well and played well.

In short, you've seen this movie before, it's been done, sometimes better, sometimes worse. This falls in the middle. Unoriginal, yet, well made.

I saw this in the theater. It has its moments, but it's not good.

I enjoyed the first half of it. Surprisingly good setup. It felt believable. I was on board for the ride. The basement is well done, at first. Then the movie starts to cheat, using angles and close ups and false jumps mixed in with real ones to keep the tension going, which is fine but it goes on way too long. It felt like the writers painted themselves into a corner and didn't know a clever way out. And that feeling just keeps on going, with unbelievably convenient (or inconvenient) things that keep happening to keep the story contained to its one principal location. The believability got stretched way beyond my suspension of disbelief.

The whole apex predator thing might have been cool if they didn't say it like six or seven times. What really hurt this movie was not making it R-rated. Like so many "horrors" these days, the sanitized deaths have little impact and make everything too clean and tidy.

The one thing the movie does best is the VFX for the alligators. That's where the money went for this, and it looks great. The hurricane, less so.

Quoted from ReneC I saw this in the theater. It has its moments, but it's not good. I enjoyed the first half of it. Surprisingly good setup. It felt believable. I was on board for the ride. The basement is well done, at first. Then the movie starts to cheat, using angles and close ups and false jumps mixed in with real ones to keep the tension going, which is fine but it goes on way too long. It felt like the writers painted themselves into a corner and didn't know a clever way out. And that feeling just keeps on going, with unbelievably convenient (or inconvenient) things that keep happening to keep the story contained to its one principal location. The believability got stretched way beyond my suspension of disbelief. The whole apex predator thing might have been cool if they didn't say it like six or seven times. What really hurt this movie was not making it R-rated. Like so many "horrors" these days, the sanitized deaths have little impact and make everything too clean and tidy. The one thing the movie does best is the VFX for the alligators. That's where the money went for this, and it looks great. The hurricane, less so.

It is R-rated, Rene. I thought the gore was excellent.

Quoted from Zack It is R-rated, Rene. I thought the gore was excellent.

You're right, and I do remember the gore in places. I still thought it was too clean though. What they did was good, I just wanted more. But I can say that about the whole second half, with the notable exception of the bathroom scene (which was in the trailer so no spoilers). That was good.

Quoted from ReneC You're right, and I do remember the gore in places. I still thought it was too clean though. What they did was good, I just wanted more. But I can say that about the whole second half, with the notable exception of the bathroom scene (which was in the trailer so no spoilers). That was good.

Yeah, I'll admit that the film wasn't as gory as I thought it'd be. But still, what gore was there was excellent IMO.

I'm sorry but this movie was bad. Poor decision-making is a part of the genre, I get that, but these people were like deranged lunatics.

Ultimately, I could not forgive the writer's devising this cramped basement that somehow had some kind of huge pipe that somehow opened into some huge, gator-infested subterranean cavern.  WTF kind of house is this??  (I think I might have figured out why the deal with that guy's realtor fell through, tho.)

The gators looked great, and at first I liked that she was a UF Gator, but then I decided that was too on the nose and even that made me mad.

If effects are enough to carry a film for you, then you will probably like this movie if you go in with your expectations set at knee-level.  

Just watched this. I enjoyed the beginning with it being at UF since that's where I live. But as the movie went on, I felt it was a bit too perfect with the Gators. Like Bert said, too on the nose.

Btw, it says my location is the Swamp. That is the name of the Gator football stadium.

I'm all for a strong female lead hero, but this actress didn't work for me at all. She wasn't a bad actress, but she had a scowl on her face from frame one and I don't think she smiled once. That made it hard to warm up to her.

Things went down hill, IMO, as soon as they left my town, lol. They said the hurricane that was coming was a category 5. Pretty weak one if that was the case. The weather was also very inconsistent. Wind, rain, clouds and flooding did look pretty convincing for the most part, but like I said, inconsistent. I felt the wind was where they made most of the mistakes with the production. Sometime it blew a little. Sometimes not at all, but somehow a tree fell through the window. The skies looked nasty at times. Dark grey with thunder and lightning and then the coming and going wind, but somehow there were still helicopters flying???

Then there was the dad who we were told was a construction guy. I admit that I know nothing about construction, but it seems to me his house was in a very shitty condition. They should've given him some other profession.

The crawl space under the house soon started to feel too contained. It grew tiresome. Also, outside the weather was supposed to be raging, but through the openings in the crawl space walls, the weather looked fine outside, besides the rain. Anyone who's ever been in a hurricane would also wonder why there was no sound of the wind...

The alligators looked great, but I felt they started out with the jump scares too early when she encountered the first one in that crawl space. They should've started a little more deceptive with snakes, IMO. After all, they do fit under the name crawl too. Bugs would've been a more realistic start as well.

All in all, not horrible, but didn't really work for me.  

Forgot to ad my logo.

Swamp Tales Films animated logo from Indie Me on Vimeo.

This being a movie I wouldn't pay to see, I was pretty psyched to see that Crawl is now on Amazon Prime so I gave it a try last night...OMG...why did I enjoy that SO much?!

I essentially agree with everything in all the previous posts: the good, the bad and the ugly. The movie does not lag at any time, so it keeps you watching but, Holy F_ck, the bad decisions and ridiculous premise is hard to get over. The father is indestructible! BTW, who designs a house with a 24" drain out of a crawl space? And being on the swamp, wouldn't they be on a slab or stilts?

But I still enjoyed the shit out of it and give it a recommend if you need an escape for 90 minutes. The large gin and tonic certainly helped too.

I watched this last week, and was thrilled it was on Amazon Prime, as I really wanted to see it.  It appeared to be my kind of movie, as I like creature features and also like what Alexandre Aja has done.

I can't say I really loved it, barely even really liked it, as things just seemed a little too far fetched and heavy handed the whole "apex predator" thing involving our lead and her swimming.

I also didn't buy the whole crawl space thing, and definitely thought the level of damage both Kellers took was way over the top.

The gators looked great.  The violence was pretty well done.  The tension and terror were there.

I had trouble really caring all that much about the characters, though. Something was missing in the setup to create characters that we cared about.

Grade - C+

Yeah, once it started to cheat, I stopped watching.