Crawl

Haley Keller (Kaya Scodelario) is a swimmer left emotionally scarred by her father’s coaching as a child, but when a category five hurricane threatens his Florida home, she still drives through the storm to check up on him. Arriving at his collapsing house, she finds out that he’s nowhere to be seen. However, a much more reptilian danger lies in wait, ready to feast upon her fears…

… still manages to surface next to ‘The Shallows’ as decently-fed modern horror fare.

Alexandre Aja’s latest monster flick is as shamelessly enjoyable as the exhausted premise it returns you to is over done. That said, deliberately signposting its plot points as Haley gets closer and closer to her father’s true situation, ‘Crawl’ still surprises in being a compact thriller with little or no fat on its bones. Progressively chewing up its cast upon arrival, Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper both manage to survive the longest by sequentially surrendering body parts as a way of advancing the plot. 

Whilst it inevitably drowns next to the perennial legend that is ’Jaws’, ‘Crawl’ still manages to surface next to ‘The Shallows’ as decently-fed modern horror fare. With a decent build-up and a brace of committed performances, Alexandre’s Aja’s latest overturns expectations by not cutting you adrift as its first bite starts to pale. 

Go on. Dip your toe into its waters. You might be surprised by its surprising taste.