7/22/9 - Crawl (2019) - 5+/6-/10

A young woman and her father are trapped under a house during a hurricane surrounded and attacked by alligators. Yes. It is exactly what you expect. Jaws meets his Hills Have Eyes remake, but sub gators for sharks/mutated madmen and turn that dial a notch up. Aja like his gruesomeness; he has a penchant for broken bones and severed limbs. In “Gator Land”, they abound still, but he also allowed for reasonable and decently executed dread. Sure it is kinda tropey, but that doesn’t make it automatically bad.

Now, I want to talk about a couple things.

1. There is some gruesomeness. Aja certainly has a style and preference, and bloodletting, flesh tearing, bone popping is his jam. That is fine, but I couldn’t help but consider the movie trope of dissimilar reactions to similar injuries. This often happens with action film stars, where a trauma will result in killing one but barely  be an impediment to others. Often, you roll with it, as it apparently displays the strength, resilience and fortitude of the protagonist. But this one got to me. The shit these people go through and get by with is nuts, especially when you see lesser suffering offing so many others. It challenges my relation to the drama, when the stakes are questioned as they display their superhuman-esque tolerances. (I do love dwelling on the thought that after this film ends that they are undoubtedly going to die of infection)

2. What in the movie of my life will I be doing to get the flashback montage of training that pushes me to be able to accomplish it? I hope it is something good and worthy, not my ample time on the toilet or knowing stupid useless trivia. Maybe it will be a string of me sitting in a theater Ludovico treatment style, watching movies like Crawl, of varying quality. And it is because of the hours of intense viewing and my superior tenacity that I am able to conquer that barrage of so-so films when it matters the most.

The straining of credulity simmered in me while watching. Going up high took waaaay too long to figure out and their misadventures with the boat had me shaking my head. I mean, really? That said, it is fun and ridiculous, if you want to raise your blood pressure a bit but still roll your eyes. It’s not a great movie, but there are times and places when this is what you want. Just make sure you don’t watch it in a crawl space during a hurricane...