Greg, don’t walk and don’t crawl to this latest review.

We meet a father, Dave (Barry Pepper), and his daughter Haley (Kaya Scodelario), who are living in south Florida. There is a terrible hurricane approaching and Haley is worried about her dad’s safety. She defies police orders to stay away from her Dave’s neighborhood and drives to his home as the storm rages. He is nowhere to be found, but his dog is barking at the entrance to the crawlspace.

Greg, I have a confession — I’m a big fan of movies and television shows involving deadly creatures chewing on live human flesh. We’re talking The Walking Dead, Jurrasic Park, even Hannibal. What this says about me, I don’t want to know. But I find these movies deliciously creepy and enjoyable.

So you’d think that I’d love Crawl. After all, this film is 90 minutes of Dwayne-Johnson-sized alligators chomping down on innocent people’s arms and legs the way most of us chew happily on a KFC chicken dinner. There’s everything a sick puppy like me would ever want to see – plenty of gore, gruesome bite marks, crimson water, the tearing of flesh, and even a shot of a gator decapitating one helpless dude in a single bite. I was in heaven.

But for some reason, I couldn’t get into this movie. I think my indifference stems from the fact that structurally the film fits a movie genre I’m not thrilled about, namely, the horror movie genre. In a typical horror film, people arrive at a house or community completely unaware that a ghost or demon or monster inhabits the house or community. One by one the people die. This format describes Crawl and I don’t find it very interesting.

I will say this: Whomever decided on the title of this film should be fired. Crawl? Really? Why aren’t words like “gator” or “jaws” or “teeth” in the title? Crawl is perhaps the lamest, most ineffectual, and least descriptive title one could come up with.

Crawl isn’t a bad movie but it is a story limited by the horror genre’s requirement that people die, one by one, at the hands (or claws) of an evil monster. The only suspense lies in the resolution of the story – how do the good guys dispose of the monster? I give this film credit for bringing a slightly estranged father and daughter together to combine forces in slaying the dragons. That gives the story some semblance of satisfaction, although all I can muster is a rating of 2 Reels out of 5.

Our heroes are challenged by a bunch of bulked-up alligators that have spent way too much time working out in their swamp-gym. Dave and Haley must use their wits and their teamwork to accomplish their heroic mission, which is basically survival. As hero missions go, mere survival is not one of the better motivations for making the world a better place. Still, our heroes do rise to the occasion, they acquire courage and resilience, and their father-daughter relationship is transformed. For these good reasons, I can award 3 Hero points out of 5.

The message of the film appears to be centered around the importance of family, and how we should all mend our bonds with family members before we are eaten alive by oversized reptiles. This is actually a good message. We do tend to let petty things separate us from the people we love, and life is too short for pettiness. An ancillary message is to heed hurricane warnings. When you have plenty of notice to get out of Dodge, then get out of Dodge. If you don’t know what “get out of Dodge” means, that’s why God invented Google. I give these messages a total of 3 Message points out of 5.

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