Good animal horror is hard to find. A few years ago we were treated to an excellent representative of the genre with Crawl. The alligator thriller has an ideal running time and is showing today on ProSieben. He is a must for all animal horror fans. Even Quentin Tarantino loves him.
Today on TV: Crawl is a nerve-racking horror trip
Some of the best horror films take place in small spaces. Not only because of the usually low budget, but also because the spatial hopelessness can help a film reach new heights. Think Alien or Saw.
This is what Crawl is about: Instead of being in space or chained in the bathroom, Crawl finds daughter Haley (Kaya Scodelario) and father Dave (Barry Pepper) trapped in a flooded basement with alligators. A hurricane is raging outside.
Paramount Pictures
Crawl: Caught between alligators and a hurricane
The premise of Crawl is incredibly simple and the implementation is skillful. If you expect a trashy creature feature à la Sharknado, you are very much mistaken. Crawl is a nail-biting, fast-paced and good-looking survival thriller with clever use of animal horror.
In crisp 87 minutes The two main characters – the father is injured from the start – have to sneak past lurid predators, distract them, and survive. The film doesn’t have a minute too much and is therefore captivating from the first to the last.
Director Alexandre Aja previously terrorized us with the excellent horror films Mirrors and High Tension. In Crawl he knows how to use the increasingly narrow and uncomfortable space to his advantage.
No wonder Quentin Tarantino also loves horror thrillers
Star director Quentin Tarantino, himself no stranger to well-staged tension and gore, raved about Crawl. Pete Hammond wrote at Deadline shortly after Crawl opened in theaters in 2019:
Tarantino told me […] that his favorite film this year so far – Attention, attention – crawl is. You heard that right. The Alligators in the Hurricane film by Alexandre Aja, which Paramount released a few weeks before Tarantino’s film [Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood] brought to the cinema. For our horror expert Max Wieseler, Crawl was also the surprise of the 2019 cinema summer. If you like survival horror films, you should definitely tune in tonight. TV and stream: When and where does Crawl come?
Crawl runs on the night of Thursday to Friday ProSieben on TV. More precisely on May 17, 2024 at 2:00 am. Crawl is currently not available to stream anywhere at a flat rate – another reason for all night owls to tune in.