 Thanks for checking out this movie review video. So this is for the 2019 release crawl Yes, it's a creature feature, which if you've seen some of my other creature feature ones, which I don't think I've done that That many I've done boar that's on shutter and other than that I can't really recall any off the top of my head. So I Like creature features. It's just there aren't a ton of them out there There's a lot of other stuff they end up watching. So anyway, I do like a good creature feature I will say right up front. I'm not gonna do spoilers on this mainly because This film just came out in 2019. I'm sure there are a lot of people who still haven't seen it yet So this will be spoiler-free except maybe just some thematic things which really don't matter to what actually goes on in the film I mean, it does for context after the fact, but you know, I'm not gonna ruin the events basically, so I will say up front though. I did enjoy this as a creature feature It's not anything groundbreaking, but I just think that it was put together well and it was Engaging it was exciting. It had good tension. Yeah So anyway, this was directed by Alexander Aja, which if people don't know some of the stuff that he's done He was involved with Piranha 3d, which was the remake of the Roger Corman and Joe Dante one Which I prefer the original, you know, big surprise, but I don't think he did a bad job with the remake I thought it was fun. It was just different He did the remake of the Hills have eyes, which I actually think is one of the better horror remakes out there to be honest That one was good. Uh, he did horns, which I wasn't a big fan of horns. I was adapted from a Joe Hill Story I like the story idea But just the way the film was done Not a big fan And his best film which if if you have not seen you must must see as a horror fan High tension it is in French. It's uh subtitles, but it is Awesome highly highly highly recommend that that's what put Alexander Aja on the map, which by the way Alexander Aja is not his actual name it's it's some like made-up name because of uh, I think it was because he was trying to not have His name tied to whose parents were because I think they were involved in film I might be wrong on that, but I can go more into that if I do high tension as a review, which I'm pretty sure at some point. I will anyway The script was written by Michael and Sean Rasmussen Who the only thing I've movie I'd even heard of that they had written before was The Ward Which I have not seen but I've heard is solid Um, then Sam Raimi was a producer on this that was kind of the big name And this was one of those issues where when it was coming out people were getting confused because it was like You know produced by Sam Raimi or a Sam Raimi picture or something like that in the trailer And so people were immediately like oh Sam Raimi directed this and this type of thing happens all the time Like when a film comes out and it's like presented by Eli Roth people are just like oh Eli Roth directed it No, he didn't he just produced it. He's just putting it out there So I've heard a lot of people like oh crawl Sam Raimi did that and they're like no He produced it. He didn't write it. He didn't direct it. He's just produced it. So You got another difference So it was a 13.5 million dollar budget, but it made 91.5 million in the box office Which is a pretty good return on especially a creature feature in my opinion Which I feel like people like creature features, but I feel like it's hard for them to like really make money in the theaters so There was there was actually no screening for critics of this film prior to actually coming out But since the reception of it ended up being so positive There was speculation after the fact that they could have made even more money in the box office If they had done a screening for critics ahead of time Because then before the release there would have been all this positive press out there Saying hey, this film is actually a good one And then that would drive more people to the theater, but they didn't do that. So it's kind of a What could have been could we have made a lot more money? Yeah, potentially. So I guess maybe they were they didn't feel Super strong that people would like the movie That's what that says to me when people don't want to send out screener copies It it just says to me that they just don't They don't think it's going to be received well. So I don't know The opening portion of the film is actually a very clear foreshadowing Of something I'm not you know, I'm not gonna say but when you're watching it, you'll you'll know I mean if you've seen enough horror films if you've seen enough creature features in particular You'll know that in the opening sequence, you're like, oh, this will be important This will come into play like it's very easy to see It's foreshadowing, but it's like Smacky in the face foreshadowing basically especially because going into the movie everyone knows what they're getting to a degree You don't know all the events that are going to happen and you don't know how it's going to end But you do know what's going on like everybody knows there's an a gator in this film Everybody knows there's like a gigantic hurricane happening and people are trapped in the hurricane with gators or with a gator there and Like we know we all know this so then it's like how do you execute it? There aren't going to really going to be twists so much It's just how are you going to execute it and they did a good job with the execution Um, it's a clear setup There is kind of a comment in here about apex predator Which is a little bit on the nose in my opinion and it and that's one one of the things that's in that opening sequence Or no, it isn't I don't think it's in that exact opening sequence. It might be a tad bit later, but not long But there's this kind of thing like someone saying oh, you're the apex predator is like a A moniker for the person and then it's just like okay because Gators can be considered an apex predator for sure So it's like apex predator versus apex predator. Okay I don't know. I didn't care for that portion, but whatever So there's this weird part of me that actually kind of likes natural disaster films because it's real life scares And there's no human control over it. So That's just something that kind of popped into my head while I was watching the film because I don't watch a whole lot of natural disaster films But when I do I'm always like I like this and I feel bad about liking it because for the most part those types of films are Viewed as not that good And I mean they do fall into the horror genre as its own subgenre because It's horrific when you get caught up in something like a hurricane or volcano earthquake, whatever And for me I I enjoy them because they are particularly bleak in the sense that you know humans don't necessarily have control When it comes to natural disasters And that's one of the things I really like about crawl is that it fuses the creature feature of this gator there With a natural disaster happening, which actually just like limits the scope of what the characters are able to do And how they're able to get away If you've watched enough of my reviews, you know that I'm a big fan of like The the heroes or the main characters being very confined with whatever the the main villain is And you know this does that like first of all the setting that they choose Really does that and second, you know It's increased the by the natural disaster that's going on because even if you make it out of the little area where you are Things are flooded, you know, it's it's a gigantic hurricane out there So how far can you actually even get so it really ups the stakes and it makes it even more bleak Looking um, so I don't know. I just like that and I thought it was very smart for them to kind of fuse those two things together in my opinion They do a good job of laying out the family dynamics in a very natural way. That's kind of the setup for it Um It doesn't feel forced It's not like oh, they're jamming this down our throat because it's going to be important later It feels very normal. It feels very natural. It flows with the story Which you know, not everyone does that when they're making these types of movies. So good on them for doing it There's a typical family dynamic of are you all right? Yeah, I'm fine. Are you all right? Yeah, I'm fine too And this is physical but mental and emotional when you actually get to the heart of things So what I mean is that they is in the movie. There's this kind of Typical thing that does happen where where family members would just be like, oh, are you okay? Yeah, I'm fine. Are you okay? Yeah, I'm fine And it's just people trying to be strong for each other and not worry the other one when mentally and emotionally They're kind of falling apart they may physically be okay, but You know in their mind, they're like, I'm not okay and things are messed up and I'm afraid and but they kind of power through it They put up a facade so that the other person doesn't worry and that's something I feel like families do a lot and that's very much on display in this film And I think it was a kind of cool theme to it The storm feels confining enough But they create an even more confined feeling with the house layout that they use in this But it also creates hiding spots at the same time So it creates a convenience for the story, but it also creates A a really nice setup for making things feeling even feel even more confined And I'm not going to say specifically why but you'll see if you if you've seen the movie You know what I'm talking about if you're going to see the movie you will know what I'm talking about But the layout of the set and and how they set that up I think was really smart really well done and it lend itself to kind of drawing out the story Not in a way that makes it feel like they're intentionally drawing it out, but in a way that makes it feel tense and and um I don't know. It just felt like the right length to me. It was good This is about an hour. I think it was like an hour and 27 minutes with credits So that that's a good run time for any horror film to be honest, especially creature feature So the gator in this looks good and it moves really well It looks really good when it moves which makes the fight the fights and the chase scenes even better That's the big thing if you're doing a creature feature the creature has to look good the CGI that they did in this looks Really good. There are only a few very small moments where it looks a little bit wonky But it's fleeting. It's very very fleeting and most likely you're not even going to catch it I found it like a little bit here or there and like I said, it's just like a quick moment of like Ooh, that looked a little bit off, but for the most part it looked great. It looked great. I was very impressed by that The attacks in this are violent and pretty gory very very well executed That's one of the big things obviously for creature features like this is Are the kills good, you know, is it violent? Is it gory? Are you getting out of it? What you want? I mean, that's kind of mainly the draw to creature features to be honest Unless you're drawn to it because of the whole human versus nature thing because at the heart of it That's what creature features are about. It's about humans dominating nature Because it's usually nature unless there's some sort of like human element to it where you know, the the monster is radioactive And then it gets much larger and then that's kind of you know Humanity versus nature that was made horrific because of humanity one of those things But this is just human versus nature in two ways because of the hurricane and the gator They do a good job of slowly making the situation more bleak And it kind of feels like story wise the walls just closing in on the main characters and It was good. It was and that's the thing like it I see it was done slowly, but the pacing felt right Um, you know that it's slowly but you're you don't lose interest. That's the thing and that's the thing like it slowly developed stuff Slowly makes it more bleak, but it moves at a pace that just feels Appropriate and you stay engaged and it helps with ratcheting up the tension as things go along Um, I wrote down being involved with this film cast and or crew must have been kind of miserable because of having to deal with all that water. I mean everyone must have looked like a Um, eternal prune when they were doing this film because so much water And then it also made me start to wonder how did they do this film? Did they do it in in a water tank on a sound stage and then like build build everything in there? Because I could see it being that um, it just makes me wonder I feel like that's the way they kind of had to do it. I mean, right Put a comment down there your thoughts or maybe someone knows for sure Real good directing and cinematography in this the underwater shots looked particularly nice And for a movie like this, that's that's a big selling point That you have to nail those shots because it's about water. There's a huge water component to it And they did that Yeah, I already already talked about the the mashing of the natural disaster and creature feature love it Uh, it has one of those typical horror themes of This person has something they need to overcome and the ordeal they go through gives them the push that they need This is not necessarily a spoiler. I feel like people kind of Always expect this type of theme from horror movies Uh, it it feels like in particular Yeah, I think creature futures kind of have that even more so but You know the horror genre in general has a lot of that where they're just like, yeah, this is uh you know This is this person's problem and then they go through this very extreme ordeal that's forced upon them Which forces them to confront that problem that they have deal with it in a very time restricted An intense situation and then they come out on the other end and they're like, oh I just dealt with my thing now. I'm much better It's it's in a lot of horror films. So yeah, so anyway, information. That's all I really have to say about crawl There's not too much to actually break down about it because it is a relatively straightforward creature feature But like I said, it's well done. It's a lot of fun. If you like a good creature feature You will like crawl in my opinion, although, you know, there will be the odd person out out there who's like I love creature features, but I hated this movie But for the most part everyone I know who's seen it has said either they thought it was solid or really good. So There you go. So that takes me to my rating on it. So out of five stars with half stars in play I'm going to give us a three and a half. So There you go. That's a good rating for this film three and a half Sam Raimi did not write it or direct it. He just produced it. Good job. Alexander Aja. Good job Michael and Sean Rasmussen Good job to the actors too. Barry Pepper is in this I forgot to say but Barry Pepper is in it He's been in much smaller roles here and there Um, but he's a good actor and he really did a good job in this film, but Nice film fun time. Thank you everyone for checking this out. Please put some comments down there Let's talk about crawl your feelings on it. Have you seen it? Have you not seen it? What are your ideas about it going into it? Uh, and if you have seen it, what are your thoughts about the film overall? Did you like it hate it whatever and then hit that subscribe for me if you can that's a big favor You can do for me. That's what drives me with my channel because I don't make money or anything Just doing this for fun. So you can do the like that's fun too, but the subscribe is a big thing But thanks so much for checking this out and until next time keep it brutal