Crawling for Scale

Crawl - 2019
Directed by: Alexandre Aja
Starring: Barry "Saving Private Ryan from Battlefield Earth" Pepper, some chick who looks like that other chick who was in that one movie with Sean Harris, but isn't. A dog, some alligators and a whole shitload of expendable Floridians.

I'm assuming this flick is called Crawl because it takes place primarily in a crawlspace beneath a flooding house during a category 5 hurricane in Florida. Alright, makes sense, though it's not the catchiest title one could have chosen. Gators don't crawl, they kinda lurch and plod and shimmy. The word "crawl" just does not make me think of gators. I might have suggested something like "Gator Aid" though, so perhaps I'm not the best person to turn to when it comes to such matters.

Also, the timing could not possibly be worse as -- in real life -  New Orleans prepares to get slammed once again, this time by Tropical Storm Barry, who shares a name with one of the stars of this movie.

Five minutes in and I already know that one of the final scenes of this movie will be Barry Pepper calling his daughter an "apex predator" for swimming so Olympically awesome and saving his ass from becoming jerky for the gators, and for the purpose of bringing this throw away summer disaster flick full circle and tying its ends together into a neat little bow. But fuck it - I like summer disaster movies about sharks and gators and sharktogators and octosquids and eelophants and tsunamitigers or whatever the fuck else you can slam together for an 83 minute all you can eat buffet of stupid/half naked people, so here we go. It can't possibly be dumber than 47 Meters Down. Right?

Oh, and if the dog doesn't get munched by the twenty minute mark as a salute to Tobe Hooper's Eaten Alive, I'll stick a bottle rocket up my butt and perform for free at the next Lollapalooza.

Look, I know Floridians are dumber than spray cheese, but are you really going to fart around inside of a gas station, eating overcooked weenies like it's the coolest thing that ever happened to you, while mom and dad wait outside in their tiny little plywood boat in winds exceeding 100mph? Oh wait...this is Florida. Of course they fucking would.

Oh god, do people really do this? The alligators are temporarily distracted by the second billed cast members they've just gorged themselves upon, and we're gonna sit in the basement, up to our tits in seawater and talk about why mommy and daddy got divorced? I don't need justification for wanting to survive. A fucking flooded basement full of fucking alligators is justification in and of itself! You are wasting valuable swimming away time!

Thank god our heroine has one of those hand-crank flashlights that emits a powerful beam of steady light for an amazingly long time. I actually own one of those little hand-crank dealies. It will sputter out a weak and stuttery floodbeam for approximately 32.5 seconds after a good five seconds of cranking, which is about 3 seconds longer than Haley spent priming hers. Not buying it. Also, are the baby alligator eggs really necessary? Is she gonna go full blown Ripley with a flame thrower at some point? Or were they just thrown in there as an anchor for Crawl 2: Revenge of the Tadpoles?

Fun fact: alligators can walk on land. You're not safe just because you're out of the water, k? But just to keep the action going, lets wade waist deep through the flooded streets with our open and badly bleeding wounds, leaving a nice trail of gore for the gators to smell and follow, instead of retreating to any number of available high rooftops to wait for rescue. That'll give the gators a few more opportunities to snap at us and miss! And although I've never been to Florida and never will be, even I know that just because it stops raining, doesn't mean the storm is over. It's called The Eye, and it's a brief cessation, so I suggest you stop using this one, clear and sunny moment to pose for a panoramic and get your asses in gear.

Yep, there it is! The "apex predator" line, just like I called it! Where's my cookie?

Yay, the dog lived to the end of the movie.
But I'm not doing that bottle rocket in the butt thing.
I lied.

47 Meters Down

Okay kids, time for another "Review As It Happens." This time out, it's Forty Seven Meters Down,.

Great. Someone drops their cell phone case and lit cigarette into the pool and tries to pass it off as an opening sequence.

And for some reason, the spilled Bloody Mary in the water spells out In The Deep. What, did Quentin Tarantino take over in post?

Okay, we've got an insecure, recently dumped brunette and a party-crazy blonde in Mexico. Who's going to die first? And who will remain to be sold into sex slavery by a Tijuana drug cartel?

Oh god I fucking hate this music. What is the proper name of the genre to which this stale, unimaginative, recycled synth shit is officially categorized under? Electronic Bubble Gum? Loser Jazz?

"Does my butt look okay?"

Okay, chicks meet hot Mexican guys, they make a diving date, you're pretty sure at this point that you've nailed Mandy Moore as the sole survivor because she doesn't kiss her date goodnight. But then, last minute tongue action! Mandy body slams the Mucho Macho Muchacho and rams her ovipositor down his esophagus! All bets are off!

Now it's the next day, and Mandy once again appears to be the chosen final girl as she frets over the shark infested waters and tells her blond friend how stupid and unsafe this is. Blond honey badger girl don't give a shit. Eye roll "like omg who cares about getting killed, Debbie?"

Oh god it's Matthew Modine and his weird face. Hey Matt, remember when I suggested Married To The Mob 2: Electric Boogaloo as your comeback vehicle and you blocked me? Shoulda taken my advice, home slice.

And our cast can't out-act a bucket of chum.

"Fish heads, fish heads,
roly-poly fish heads.
Fish heads, fish heads, 
eat them up, yum!"

Oh wow, we're in the ocean! And there's fish! Neato! Hey, lets go find Nemo and Dory!  But first, let me drop this borrowed digital camera straight down into a sharks mouth!

And we have our title! The winchy-thingy snaps, the cage plummets and the girls go screaming down into the darkness which is a whopping 47 meters deep! And all of the heavy stuff falls right on top of their shark cage, trapping them inside! And there's blood in the water and Mandy is hyperventilating and there's no sign of Spongebob anywhere! This totally blows, you guys!

Emaciated blond squeezes her way through cage bars and attempts to clear the debris away so fatass Mandy can escape. Like they're not both totally stick-thin enough to disappear if they turn profile, right? Matthew Modine demands that Blonde Bitch get back in the cage or he'll play Radiohead's The Bends. At least that's what I think he said.

Forty minutes in. Time to bare our souls to one another about our flaws and screwed up relationships and form a deeper bond as we sit blowing bubbles in the bottom of this fucking cage, waiting for Nacho Libre to save their girl-bait butts.

I'm beginning to suspect that this entire movie was created just so the director could point his camera up at the girls wet-suited, crack-flossing thongs and all of the jiggly white buttock flesh it cannot contain.

Fulci's Zombi 2.

Oxygen, draining! Sharks, hungry! Bars, breaking! Heart pumping determined percussion starts! It's HEROIC SACRIFICE TIME! And I have no idea which girl has just left the cage because this film is darker than a woodchucks asshole! Honey, just follow the glow of your whiteass legs up to the surface.

You know what this film needs? A zombie. I mean, besides Modine.

And the first kill clocks in at the 54 minute mark! And of course, it's a minority! Sharky don't like whitebread.

Okay, I'm pretty sure it's Mandy Moore who is making a swim for it. After all, she got dumped by her boyfriend and has been the voice of reason throughout the whole entire one hour so she has to prove how brave and strong and capable she is so she can return to the beach next summer for the sequel with total amped up feminine fearlessness! Right?

You're gonna need a bigger butt.

Who the fuck uses Home Depot hemp rope to pull a one ton cage up through the fucking ocean? No wonder you're all shark chow, stupid white people.

"Okay, Kate? We can't afford anymore CGI sharks, so we're adding a nitrogen narcosis subplot now. You will soon start hallucinating sharks because it's cheaper. Here are your spare oxygen tanks. Your buttcheeks will also serve as a flotation device."

Peachy. I'm running out of oxygen, I can't reach the spare tank and I've punctured my hand, releasing more blood into the water. What's next? Jeez, why didn't I just pull on a short skirt and some high heels and lose my virginity on the way down here too? Maybe if I ask nice, the shark will put on a hockey mask for the final scene?

The Shallows this ain't. Not even a wading pool.

Hmmm, die from decompression or die by being ripped apart by the razor sharp teeth of a great white shark? Guess which one I'm choosing?

Okay, 5 minutes apparently means 30 seconds when you're underwater. Oh wait, it was all a hallucination? Cop out piece of crap DooDoo Ex Machina BS. What is this, The Descent but with sharks?

Wow, okay, you're gonna end your movie like that? Well fuck you too, movie.