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.