Since 2014’s The Babadook, I have noticed this growing idea of “Elevated Horror” among snobbish cinephiles. These “horror fans” will have you believe that the genre has undergone a renaissance for the past 7 years. They will have us know that the days of schlocky gorefests are long gone – enter the age of “smart and aesthetically pleasing” horror with something to say about trauma the human condition or “society”! Artists like Jordan Peele, Ari Aster, and Rob Eggers are some of the recent voices in the horror genre praised for their contemplative, sophisticated, and metaphorically rich horror flicks.
Elevated Horror vs. Traditional Horror
While I adore this injection of new blood into the horror genre, I feel like this rise of “A24 Horror” has contributed to the dismissiveness of plain and “low-brow” slashers or monster movies. To me, horror is horror, whether it is shot through a Sam Raimi camera, or whether it is shot like an Ingmar Bergman arthouse picture! It is highly elitist to denigrate lean, stripped-down B-movies made with passion and the intent to thrill. Not everything has to be filled to the brim with subtext. A movie monster does not need to represent something symbolic in order to be scary!
The Case for Visceral and Cathartic Horror
Having monsters be allegorical stand-ins is fine, but I will always make a case for engaging with horror that is visceral and cathartic. So much of modern “elevated” horror falls back into trauma/abuse/abandonment as a crutch, when often times the concepts within these films itself are terrifying enough. This is why I found 2019’s Crawl to be a much-needed breath of fresh air.
The Power of Simplicity in Crawl
In Crawl, estranged competitive swimmer (Kaya Scodelario) and her trainer dad (Barry Pepper) are trapped in their family home during a hurricane as alligators show up! The alligators in this film aren’t giant prehistoric or genetically mutated alligators, nor are they some manifestations of the protagonists fractured psyche, or metaphors for rape or a critique of some socioeconomic ill. They are just alligators – normal-sized alligators unleashed during a hurricane (I reject any farfetched parallels drawn between this movie and Hurricane Katrina!)
The Focus on Thrills
The script puts enough effort in the father/daughter relationship so Scodelario and Pepper have solid material to work with. The writing of the relationship could have been fleshed out more, but the movie itself is fully focused on generating thrills, which is totally fine by me. This is like Will and Jaden Smith’s After Earth, but infinitely more sincere and engaging! The audience gets a palpable sense of great pain when characters get bitten by the gators! It is a predator/prey relationship where our heroes will have to shed blood to survive!
Technical Brilliance in Crawl
I adore the cinematography beneath the house, the muddily cavernous depth of field of the crawlspace against framing that could be hopeful, spiritual, dreadful within a single scene. Like H.R. Geiger’s production design on Alien, the monsters’ skin blends with the surroundings the characters are trapped in, constantly putting the audience on edge.
A Throwback to 20th-Century Monster Movies
Crawl isn’t rewriting the rules or changing the game. If anything, it feels like a late 20th-century monster movie made in the late 2010s – not necessarily a throwback, but has a similar creative ethos of that era! Director Alexandre Aja of Mirrors and The Hills Have Eyes remake fame proves he has not lost his flair in the genre. So much so that he had the ultimate stamp of approval for getting Sam Raimi to produce the film.
The Appeal of Straightforward Horror
Crawl takes such a simple creature feature concept and just executes it in the scariest, most stylish way possible. Crawl is concrete evidence that horror doesn’t need to have a purpose higher than creatures coming to eat you alive. It’s the right amount of banal mundanity to ground the terror, combined with the right amount of imagination to haunt you in your nightmares! This is cinematic proof that simple always works if it’s done well.
Mike’s love for films began when his dad introduced him to The Usual Suspects. From that moment on, he never looked back. Now, having explored thousands of films, he has mastered the art of unpeeling each facet gracefully. Mike especially loves writing movie reviews that are narratives in themselves, offering a unique perspective and depth you won’t find anywhere else. His insightful and captivating reviews bring each film to life, making him a standout voice in the world of cinema.