Crawl review: Both too stupid and not stupid enough

The alligator-based horror could really do with some sense and structure to go along with all these earnest emotions

Dir: Alexandre Aja. Starring: Kaya Scodelario, Barry Pepper, Ross Anderson, Anson Boon, George Somner, and Ami Metcalf. 15 cert, 87 mins

A young woman faces off against a deadly predator. Luckily, she’s been trained in the exact discipline that will ensure her survival. She also happens to have a fraught but tender relationship with her newly single dad that adds emotional weight to her turmoil. This is the synopsis of the 2016 film The Shallows, which pitted Blake Lively’s surfboarding medical student against a very hungry shark. It’s also the synopsis of 2019’s Crawl, which pits Kaya Scodelario’s aspiring college team swimmer against some very hungry alligators. These are just two iterations in an endless factory line of man-vs-nature summer releases that trace their popularity all the way back to Jaws. But while The Shallows was a tightly wound, adrenaline-pumping thriller, Crawl feels nowhere near as slick or as entertaining. Somehow, it’s both too stupid and not stupid enough.

Scodelario plays Haley, a Florida native who gets a phone call from her younger sister (Morfydd Clark). She’s worried about their father Dave (Barry Pepper), who’s been on his own since the divorce and now suddenly isn’t returning her calls, right when a category 5 hurricane is about to hit the state. Haley ignores the warnings to evacuate and goes on the search for him, eventually finding him down in the cramped crawl space underneath their old family home, with a giant chunk missing from his shoulder. The culprit? The giant alligator who currently has the two of them cornered, as floodwater starts pouring in from all sides. If they decide to wait it out, they drown. If they make a run for it, they risk getting munched. Survival here means finding a way to achieve the impossible.

Yet, this seductively simple premise gets increasingly complicated as the film goes on. While most entries in this genre focus on a single, devilishly determined creature, Crawl goes one step further. Not only is there more than one alligator in the neighbourhood, but there’s a seemingly endless supply of them, and they all like to pop up at random like the world’s deadliest game of whack-a-mole. It’s hard to keep the tension high when each time Haley and her father evade a gator, you know that several more will be around the corner. It’s a cycle of chomping with no clear end in sight.

This would be fine if Crawl was some delirious B-picture that put all its focus on outrageous kills and non-stop gore. It’s not like director Alexandre Aja has no experience in the field, since he was behind 2010’s goofy Piranha 3-D, a loose remake of Joe Dante’s 1978 film. Certainly, Crawl has its bloody moments, with plenty of lingering shots of gaping wounds and protruding bones. But, outside of one sequence involving three unlucky looters, the film just doesn’t seem as gleeful in its carnage as the situation calls for.

The issue seems to be in Michael and Shawn Rasmussen’s rather self-serious script. While there’s a need to pepper in just enough backstory that the audience actually wants the leads to survive, Crawl subjects us to a full-on melodrama. Granted, Scodelario proves that she’s a good fit for the genre. There’s a steely look to her that makes you believe she really has the will to pull through. But Haley and Dave spend what could be their very last moments on Earth in an extended therapy session, hashing out their post-divorce family problems (she blames her father’s dedication to her swimming training as the reason her mother was so dissatisfied). It’s an unnecessary distraction from the reptilian murder spree we’re meant to be witnessing. There’s even an adorable pup named Sugar thrown into the mix, in case the film didn’t quite feel sentimental enough.

Overall, Crawl feels too gritty and realistic to justify all the incredulous things it tries to get away with. Alligators can chomp through certain materials, but not others. Seasoned Floridians seem to have no idea of the basic protocol when it comes to hurricanes. Sure, there’s no need for logic if a film’s willing to poke fun at itself, but Crawl could really do with some sense and structure to go along with all these earnest emotions.

Crawl is released in UK cinemas on 23 August