It's been done a hundred times before; an escape film from some creature. A shark is the most common creature used, but whales, alligators, and even killer dolphins (The Day of the Dolphin (1973)) have been the subject of these films. If asked, many would most likely say that Jaws is the most popular and well-respected in this horror subgenre. Jaws made people worldwide afraid to go into the water; It was so popular that it skyrocketed a franchise consisting of four films and numerous video games and merchandise. It also skyrocketed many films that use the same formula: The Reef (2010), Shark Night (2011), The Shallows (2016), and 47 Meters Down (2019), to name a few.
Although all fun and gore-heavy films, the repeated use of this formula can get stale. Alexandre Aja’s 2019 film Crawl is a unique take on this Jaws formula and doesn’t allow the plot to get too clichéd. With his last creature film being the hilarious Piranha 3D (2010), one might expect another feel-good horror film to laugh hard at. Crawl is nothing like Piranha, though, as Aja uses killer alligators as a backdrop to an emotional subplot on complicated father and daughter relationships.
Crawl begins in a pool: underwater shots of silhouetted bodies accompanied by eerie low-toned music. The camera then focuses on the protagonist of the film: aspiring swimmer Haley (Kaya Scodelario). As she gets out of the pool, the film quickly jumps into a flashback sequence, a blurry vision of Haley as a child in the same pool room with her coach repeating the words, “Don’t let them see you cry.” When the coach asks Haley what she is, the camera focuses on her young, menacing eyes as she whispers the words, “Apex predator.”
The film then transitions to the current time, with Haley slamming her locker door, highlighting a picture of her dad smiling, revealing that her father was her coach. Haley is also on the phone with her sister Beth (Morfydd Clark), who warns her that a category five hurricane is coming to Florida. Beth is worried because their dad Dave (Barry Pepper), hasn’t responded to her calls. As Beth continues to say small comments such as “You’re just like dad, and you hate it,” Crawl lays out the most vital information for the spectator: Haley is a very talented swimmer, and that she and her father have an estranged relationship.
What really stands out about Crawl is how the film focuses more on human relationships than the creatures themselves. Yes, there are jump scares, and the special effects of the alligators are amazing, but this isn’t the film’s main message. If this weren’t the case, the perfect little Beth, who has an ideal relationship with her father, would be the one fighting off the alligators together. Instead, it’s his estranged daughter Haley who comes to his rescue.
To reassure Beth that their dad is okay, Haley begins to drive through her father’s neighborhood but runs into Beth's ex-boyfriend Wayne, a member of the Florida Police Department. He warns her not to go to Coral Lake because it is beginning to flood. Going against his wishes, she enters Coral Lake and finds her father’s dog Sugar alone in his house. Starting to panic, she drives around the neighborhood and comes across her dad’s truck at their own childhood home. While looking around the house, Sugar begins to bark at the basement obsessively. Walking down the creaky, dark stairs, Haley finds her dad passed out with a massive bite mark on him. Before long, an alligator is introduced, and Haley and her father are trapped.
Crawl doesn’t waste any time with useless information. Within the first 15 minutes of the film, critical details like family dynamics and Haley’s love of swimming make it easy to pick up what is most likely to occur. When she goes to her father’s house and sees the alligators, it is vital that they have to work together to fight these CGI human-eating gators. Hopefully, they can build their relationship while doing so. Although this makes the film a bit stereotyped, aren’t most killer creature movies? Sometimes it’s easier to enjoy the ride of this high-budget, fast-paced, entertaining killer alligator movie.
A significant scene highlighting Haley and her father's relationship is towards the beginning when Haley asks her father why he was at their childhood home in the first place. He said he wanted to fix some stuff around the house since they were selling it. This adds to Haley's feeling that her father doesn't care about her, as he is simply giving away the last piece of them as a whole family. Throughout the film, alligators begin to multiply, and Haley and her father fight them off while rehashing their issues. As they begin to kill these alligators one by one, their vulnerability to one another heightens. Towards the end of their journey, Dave reveals that he doesn’t want to sell the house; it was the last place they were a family. Haley says a simple sentence that stimutaniously mends their relationship, stating, “This house isn’t a family. You and me; that’s a family.”
When interviewed for Slash Film, Aja stated, "I didn't want to do a monster movie. I didn't want to do a giant radioactive alligator. I didn't want to do alligator flying in a tornado. That's a few things, a set of rules that I was really trying to [implement]. I didn't want to have the alligators having an agenda of revenge or any type of human projection thing. I wanted to try to make the movie as close as I can from the realm of possibilities, and somehow almost like as if based on a true story. And that was kind of the direction."
In the end, Crawl is a fun twist on the typical Jaws formula. The articulate way that Aja utilizes his camera work is something to be applauded for: The CGI storm and alligators looking almost too realistic not to believe, the dim and grainy lighting, as well as the claustrophobic camerawork detailing every corner of the basement.