Wind and
Broken glass are the first things I picture when I think of 'Crawl' — that and the terrible calm of water slowly filling a house. The movie is basically a stripped-down survival thriller: a massive hurricane hits Florida, and Haley Keller goes looking for her missing father in their family home. She finds
him trapped in a collapsed crawlspace, injured but stubborn, and then they both discover they are not
alone — the floodwaters brought a hungry, territorial alligator army into the house.
The film keeps the focus tight: it’s about how Haley and her
dad, Dave, try to outmaneuver rising water, collapsing walls, and increasingly aggressive gators. The main characters are Haley (the daughter who refuses to leave him behind) and Dave (the injured, stubborn father who’s doing everything to survive). The gators function as the antagonists — almost characters themselves — and the hurricane is a looming force that raises tension and claustrophobia. I love how the movie balances pure
Creature-feature thrills with a human center; it’s visceral, a little grimy, and oddly tender in its depiction of familial
grit, which stuck with me long after the credits rolled.