Movie reviews

CRAWL

Recommended. Ignore the moronic title, the movie's...wow! Shot in Serbia but you can easily get fooled it's Florida. The premise is quite realistic and a nice break from supernatural horrors. This one's about 'gators. It adopts horror gimmicks but in a creative way. The first jump scare is a tree breaking in through a window during a hurricane. Later a protagonist is dragged back on the floor, like in several scary movies where the force is a corpse, a zombie or a demon. Here it's an animal. The plot keeps you on the edge of the seat and some shots are so evocative and memorable you rarely get to see such quality in this genre, e.g. a girl keeps her eyes above the water like a reptile, the round pipe exit with remnants of bars is striking. Several scenes resemble those in which sharks "acted" in other movies. It's just incredible how it must have been shot with the dangerous animals. You get underwater takes, air-views and level shots at all angles. However it was made, the cinematography stands out. The whole thing provides strong emotions, you feel as if you were in the flooded village yourself, especially that it's shown as if in real time. Also, such hurricanes and flashfloods do happen for real and flood water can move even cars, as shown in the picture, which renders the film even more realistic. "See you later, alligator" by Billie Holiday and His Comets sounds along the final credits changing the mood. The lyrics mention a love for dad which gives the impression the movie was scripted around the song.