Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:48 — 47.1MB)
Welcome, Gator Bait! It’s Episode 014 of Horror Movie Weekly. This week your late-night Horror hosts, Jay of the Dead, BillChete, and Lady Phantom, are debating the merits of the killer alligator movie, Crawl (2019). We also discuss chupacabras, Julia Stiles and Jay’s overnight stay in a Haunted Hotel! Join us!
On Horror Movie Weekly, your late-night Horror hosts Jay of the Dead, BillChete and Lady Phantom bring you one recent Horror movie review every Sunday. (We’re defining “recent” as any Horror movie released within the last five years.) And we always reveal next week’s pick at the end of every show, so you can watch along with us and be prepared for the following episode. Join us, and thanks for listening!
SHOW NOTES:
Introduction
— Discussion about chupacabras and Julia Stiles
– Haunted Hotel in Ogden, Utah, and its Shining parallels (see photos below)
– Lady Phantom’s pick for this week: Crawl (2019)
Crawl (2019) — Genre Classification: Horror / Beastly Freaks (Creature Feature) and Survival Horror film
Premise:
A young Florida woman and her father try to survive being trapped in a basement-crawl space as their lives are threatened by a killer alligator in the midst of a Category 5 hurricane.
Ratings and Recommendations: Crawl (2019)
Jay of the Dead = 8 ( Buy it! )
BillChete = 4 ( Avoid )
Lady Phantom = 8.5 ( High-Priority Rental )
Next on Episode 015: Unsane (2018) — Jay of the Dead’s pick!
Podcast artwork: Lady Phantom
Original podcast theme music: Jay of the Dead
Links for this episode:
Hear Jay’s CTC review of Crawl and other killer gator movies: Considering Horror Cinema Ep. 010
Follow Horror Movie Weekly on Twitter: @horror_weekly
Website: Horror Movie Weekly.com
Follow Lady Phantom on Twitter: @LadyPhantom74
Jay of the Dead’s film blog / solocast: ConsideringTheCinema.com
Jay’s HORROR-only content: ConsideringHorrorCinema.com
Pyles Digital Media Podcast Production Services: Email Natalie at HorrorMovieWeekly@gmail.com
Patiently waiting for comments… lol
Lady phantom you’ve warmed my heart and made my day! I love julia stiles & especially 10 things i hate about you it’s one of my favorite movies! Also love her in down to you with freddie prinze jr which is awesome plus a guy thing she’s great in to! Bill & JOTD idk what’s wrong with you two! About Crawl i give it a 5.5 on the rental scale!
Lol… I know, right? 10 things is a great movie!
Best teen movie of all time! 10/10 score & own it! Thanks for mentioning the gator not being able to break through the shower door cuz that was too non belivable!
👍👍
I have to say that I am disappointed that Bill didn’t like this film. That is a shame. Seeing Crawl was the most fun I had in the theater this year (and Black Christmas isn’t going to beat it). In fact, I went ahead and purchased Alex Aja’s back filmography because of Crawl. Like Jay, I too am a huge fan of beastly freak movies and it is also one of my favorite horror sub-genres. Unfortunately, making great ones is really difficult to do. Jaws is a classic example of one that is well done and you can watch it over and over and still enjoy it. You mentioned 1980’s Alligator, which is also a classic. I am surprised that you didn’t mention that the film was directed by Lewis Teague, the director of Cujo and another great beastly freak movie and on Jay’s top ten horror movies list. Again, these movies can be enjoyed on multiple viewings because they are fun films.
Crawl is another one of these movies and is a classic and will be considered a classic, without a doubt. When the movie hard cut to the credits, I was expecting to hear an announcement to wait until the safety bar to lift before exiting the vehicle. I felt like I had been on a roller-coaster ride. The action in this movie never lets up. I really enjoyed the characters in this film. Other than some convenient exposition in the beginning and one scene of melodrama in the middle are my only complaints. I thought the acting performances were fine, with the two leads more than holding their own in this survival situation. The one scene involving baby spiders was very creepy and effective. In fact, I was very impressed with all of the visual effects in the film. The CGI looked convincing enough to me. They did try several practical models, but they weren’t believable according to an alligator’s movements according to Aja. The technical components of the film were all done well in my opinion.
So yes, there isn’t a clear sense of the basement floorplan in the movie, but the locations there are consistent throughout the film. The basement is flooded, so I don’t know how much you expect to understand the logistics of the basement. The location of the stairs doesn’t change for example.
I also enjoyed that the dog wasn’t killed. This is the first thing you think of when are introduced to the dog in the movie. You think that the dog IS going to get killed. It seems like a natural occurrence for the story being told. The dog is gator bait, right? Aja actually filmed several other sequences where the dog helps in saving Kaya and Barry, to the dog getting killed and he thought what you saw onscreen to have the best reaction and I agree. Even with this, the movie featured some of the best extreme gator violence ever put to screen. I think its safe to say that I love this movie. I can watch this over and over and enjoy it every time. It’s an 8.5/10 and a must buy and one the very best horror movies of 2019.
Steven Soderbergh is one of my favorite directors, so Unsane will be fun, especially with Jay’s real life story that he is going to tell us. Thanks for all of your great work everyone!
Thank you for your comments, Sean. Indeed, it was a fun movie. It shows in my rating, lol. I do think Alligator is way better, but there’s also the element of nostalgia to me.
Looking forward to your comments about our next review!