Chompfest 2024

The owner of the site asked me to participate in Chompfest with Baron’s shark reviews and I was more than happy to; with the first film Meg 2: The Trench. I didn’t know what other shark movie to pick as Jaws was already done. Baron suggested I do a review of a non-shark film since it’s called Chompfest and there are other animals that “chomp,” so I decided to pick Crawl which features alligators. Crawl came to theaters on the summer of 2019 from Paramount Pictures and director Alexandre Aja (The Hills Have Eyes [2006]) with writers Michael and Shawn Rasmussen (The Inhabitants [2015]) / Dark Feed [2013]).

Yeah sure you can out swim 3 gators

Haley (Kaya Scodelario (Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City [2021])) has been a swimmer all her life and is competing with her college swim team. She receives a call from her sister Beth (Morfydd Clark (Saint Maud [2019])) that she hasn’t heard from their father Dave (Barry Pepper (The Painted Bird [2019])) and is worried due to the hurricane soon arrival in Florida where he lives. Therefore, feeling obligated, Haley drives down to see him and find out why he’s been incognito. Everyone is leaving due to the storm, but she finds a way around even though she was told to turn around by the authorities and makes her way to her father’s place, but he’s nowhere to be found. She then sees his dog Sugar (Cso-Cso) and they get into her car and go to his actual home. That’s where he’s found in the basement but badly hurt due to the fact the basement is flooding and alligators got into the basement through the pipes. Dave has Haley remember what he’s told her in the past with her swimming about holding her breath as there needs to be a way they can get out of the basement but do to the increasing storm surge and flooding they are trapped so she does just that and swims to the surface to unblock the basement door so her father can get out. Along the way she’s bit as well and is injured but perseveres. In the end they make it out, but it’s not easy with a lot of chomping of others along the way. It’s amazing they weren’t killed, and the Sugar makes it out too.

Barry Pepper, Cso-Cso, and Kaya Scodelario

Crawl is a different kind of movie as I’ve never seen an alligator movie before; I know one of Baron’s favorite creature feature movies that’s not a shark is Alligator [1980], but he says this is nothing like that one. What I find odd is that Haley was able to outswim an alligator which are known to be fast in both the water and on land, but this is a movie, they must keep the lead actress alive. There is a fair amount of “chomping,” but I would have thought there would have been more since it had a budget from Paramount and there were quite a few gators. Since it wasn’t as violent I let my son watch it who loved it, but he loves anything like that. This is recommended for people who want a creature feature different than a shark movie.

your new swimming buddy

TAGLINES:

• They Were Here First
• DANGER! Alligators are common in this area. They can be dangerous. They have been known to stalk prey. THEY WILL HUNT YOU
• If the storm doesn’t get you… they will
• Swim Like Hell
• Watch Your Back

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8364368/

IMDb Rating: 6.1/10

3C Rating: 6.0/10