CRAWL. The alligators just want to eat people, and they’re having a great time doing it

Alexandre Aja is a true cinephile who has dedicated a large part of his career to creatively reworking other directors’ films—each time skillfully altering certain elements of the genre’s structure while leaving his own signature mark on the new versions. He spiced up Craven’s “The Hills Have Eyes” with the French New Extremity, where gore takes center stage, sprinkled “Mirrors” with urban gothic, turned the remake of “Piranha 3D” into a delightfully brutal black comedy, winking at the audience constantly, and “Horns” was a visually polished adaptation of Joe Hill’s prose. “Crawl” is an incredibly condensed love letter to the animal attack genre combined with disaster cinema.

I had a blast watching Aja’s film. It’s the kind of movie that doesn’t aspire to be remembered even a month after its premiere, but during the screening, it delivers perfectly measured thrills. The plot of “Crawl” is essentially a pretext—young swimmer Haley (Kaya Scodelario) learns that a category five hurricane, one that turns everything to dust, is about to hit her hometown. So she sets off to check on her father, who hasn’t been heard from. When she arrives at his house, she finds him injured in the crawlspace beneath the house (where Americans typically have pipes). Just as she’s about to move him to safety, it turns out that… killer alligators are lurking under the house. The characters are trapped; the only thing keeping them safe is a tangle of metal pipes, while the rising water level counts down the minutes to their gruesome demise.

Thankfully, Aja doesn’t overcomplicate things here; he avoids symbolic social commentary or unnecessary gimmicks—the film is weakest when the characters start talking, briefly engaging in emotional introspection, which only disrupts the rhythm of the building tension. But at the level of pure horror, the director truly excels—the viewer quickly forgets the rather silly premise and stops questioning the characters’ illogical behavior because Aja simply doesn’t give anyone time to think. The flood of water propels the relatively short runtime forward with the speed of a Kenyan sprinter. The somewhat mediocre CGI creatures provide a healthy dose of jump scares, and Aja masterfully raises the stakes in the conflict—just when it seems like the characters have made it, he immediately tightens the screws. And tightens. And tightens. He doesn’t play nice here, returning to the gruesome gore that propelled his career—when a creature bites someone, it’s brutal, and blood flows, beautifully coloring the water scarlet.

At the same time, in this story about nature devouring its own children, presented at a great pace, Aja once again proves that he has an eye for visuals. He’s supported by cinematographer Maxime Alexandre, his regular collaborator. Together, they skillfully maneuver between underwater shots, increasingly confined spaces, and the use of the pipe maze to create a claustrophobic atmosphere reminiscent of Scott’s “Alien”, where sneaky beams of light create a sense of entrapment; the reference to the space classic culminates in one of the key sequences. The film simply looks elegant, offering variety within apparent uniformity. And only in the scenes with the alligators do you see that this was a low-budget production, but in other areas, the creators squeeze out everything they can—and even go above and beyond, because this simple scare-fest would sell well anyway, given how exciting the action is.

“Crawl” is an uncomplicated film about loved ones trying to escape from seemingly unstoppable killing machines. Directed by a clever filmmaker, with no unnecessary embellishments, featuring solid performances from Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper, visually sleek, fast-paced, with no padding to cover up flaws, and made with a genuine love for the genre. You won’t be thinking about it for long after watching, but it’s the perfect, fat, horror snack after the blockbuster season.

The alligators just want to eat people, and people don’t want to be eaten. And somehow, that still entertains me. A simple, bloody, and honest story.