**Hurricanes, alligators, and a fractured father-daughter relationship - Crawl is a fun creature flick that survives it all!** Crawl is different from my usual favorite stupid shark or alligator creature features because this is not a so-bad-it’s-good ridiculous movie. Instead, Crawl is a well-done creature survival thriller that creates high anxiety with claustrophobic environments filled with enraged starving alligators. Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper play a father and daughter trapped in a flooding basement in the middle of a hurricane that has become the new home of some hungry crocs. The serious tone and high quality of Crawl would be comparable to The Shallows making this an excellent film as much about survival and growth as the alligators looking for dinner. The effects, well-designed sets, and great performances make Crawl a top-notch creature feature.

The movie plot follows Hayle, who heads towards a storm in Florida to check on his father, who is not answering calls. When she gets there, her father is hurt and the house is surrounded by hungry and furious alligators. To make it worse, the storm causes a flooding and all this water just makes the hunt easier for the gators. The movie has good visual effects, but the plot armor is the most absurd one I have seen in years. Against everybody else, the gators are relentless and super-effective man-killing machines, tearing anyone in pieces before they are even able to see what is attacking them. The protagonists, however, suffer only mild scratches from gator bites that would at least result in an arm or leg being torn off. This is so frequent and so clearly absurd and unrealistic that the movie ceases to be enjoyable after a while.

Simple but entertaining enough, and quickly paced (running time around 80-minutes w/o credits), thriller that has just enough character development for me to care about their predicament. Not sure how much replay value this has but it's at least worth a rental. **3.5/5**