Chomping at the bit for pure terror Scodelario shines in testing ordeal
Crawl Alexandre Aja is a director I was originally a huge fan of.
The Frenchman came out the traps in blistering style with brutal horror one-two Switchblade Romance and The Hills Have Eyes.
Mirrors was a worryingly poor third genre effort, though, before, for whatever reason, he decided to go down the comedy-horror route with the derivative Piranha 3D and the bizarre Horns.
Crawl is as close to pure horror as Aja has turned his camera to in a while; although there’s action aplenty too.
As a result it’s no surprise that this is his best flick since his 2006 remake of The Hills Have Eyes.
The tempting tale sees Kaya Scodelario’s Haley try to save her dad Dave (Barry Pepper) during a category five hurricane – a task made even harder by the presence of hungry alligators.
I wouldn’t quite call this a creaturefeature but the toothy antagonists do make their presence felt during a series of terrifically tense sequences.
Sussex-born Scodelario is at her big screen best here; her impressive physicality – tested underwater and being blasted by wind as well as her animal pursuers – would be good enough but she also convinces as a woman torn between ill-feelings for her estranged dad and keeping him alive.
It’s nice seeing Pepper in a high profile role as he’s made a name for himself doing eye-catching supporting work.
In truth, brothers Michael and Shawn
Rasmussen’s (Dark Feed, The Ward) script could’ve been scribbled on a napkin given the amount of action and terror filmed by Aja, but the siblings include a few nice touches like Haley being a competitive swimmer and the characters making sensible decisions – for the most part.
The pace is breakneck and, clocking in at less than an hour-and-a-half, Crawl is one of the breeziest, boldest and bloodiest flicks you’ll have seen in a while.