Fresh from director Alexandre Aja and prodder Sam Raimi, Crawl will make you want to stay in the comfort of your own home forever. Out today on DVD, Blu-Ray and digitally, this horror has everything against alligators and the changing of the seasons you could imagine, putting the characters through a whole host of problems.

Full of suspense and thrills, Crawl is a feature that reflects that of Jaws and Shallow. Kaya Scodelario plays swimmer Haley Keller, who becomes worried for the safety of her father (Barry Pepper), after he fails to pick up her calls. Deciding to go and pick him up, she crosses an alligator farm. A place that comes back to haunt the pair of them, as they find themselves stuck in a hurricane causing them to become blocked in an alligator filled drain pipe.

With only a limited amount of space to move and an intense amount of suspense brought in, the characters are faced with having to crawl and flow with the waves on screen. The alligators are impressive villains in the story and whilst some recent features have made the villains look ridiculous with CGI creations, these don’t. In fact, you have to seek out the truth as to whether they are real or not they are that good.

However, they are the only characters that have been given real justice. The story becomes an over the top family therapy session in high waters that is very unreal. Whilst many of us would be screaming and seeking to escape, the two characters bond through their misfortune. In many ways reacting as if they like it. Something that as a viewer, no matter how you are watching, isn’t wanted or needed.

Whilst director Aja is normally clever in his remakes, including The Hills Have Eyes, he fails to bring s sense of something fresh to the alligator genre. The story flows like a bad horror and sadly the actors can’t save it. Skin crawling or drain pipe crawling. Either way, it is a feature that will test you in many ways. Unlike Jaws, it won’t have you fearing a swim any time soon though.

3 Stars

Joey X