Paul O’Rourke
Believe it or not, Hollywood has made a surprising number of alligator movies.
Most of them you’ve probably never heard of, including ‘Dinocroc’, ‘Rogue’ and ‘Frankenfish’, but there’s nothing scarier than a croc on the loose.
And so this summer we have another reptile adventure to add to the lizardly list in the form of ‘Crawl’, from director Alexandra Aja. Set in Florida during hurricane season, a major storm leads to widespread house evacuations, but ace swimmer Kaya chooses to ignore the warnings and return home to look for her missing father.
When she finds him injured in a basement that is quickly filling up with flood water, Kaya has to try and drag her dad to safety. But something is standing, or swimming, in their way – alligators!
Considering that so many previous films in this genre have failed to hit the mark, ‘Crawl’ deserves special credit for ticking all the boxes and getting it right. You will be frightened, you will jump out of your seat, and you will care about the characters. You may not remember this film in 12 months from now, but that doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy yourself during its short but perfectly timed hour and half runtime.
We award Crawl a review score of 3 snappy stars.
And now for something completely different. ‘Souvenir’ is an art house film from director Joanna Hogg that drags as much as ‘Crawl’ zips along. It stars Honor Swinton Byrne (and her mammy Tilda) as a film student who gets into a relationship with an unstable older man. And that’s about it.
It has to be said that the acting is top class from Swinton Byrne and Tom Burke as her love interest, and the directing/cinematography is accomplished and thought-provoking.
Unfortunately the story is lacking in depth and this aspect of the production lets everything else down badly. Critics are raving about this movie, audiences are leaving underwhelmed. We advise you to make up your own mind.
