User reviews

If you read the online comments on various internet message boards, you'll see phrases like 'a thinking man's horror film' and 'highly atmospheric.' Then, when people - sadly, like me - who simply describe the film as 'boring,' we get criticised for 'only liking the lowest form of film' and 'not appreciating it.' It's about a seedy bar-owner who hires a mysterious hit-man to do away with an out-of-favour colleague. However, things go wrong and the hit-man ends up stalking a hapless (and overly-perfect, in my opinion) barmaid who works at the bar.

I'm afraid, for all the high-brow talk about Crawl, I just found it dull. There are long periods where there's no talking. And, in an attempt to 'create tension,' the same three chords are played endlessly on a cello. These scenes repeat at various intervals all the way through the film and you're just as well fast forwarding them and watching the speeded-up version (as you'll see what's happening at a fraction of the screen-time).

I don't just watch Michael Bay films and movies filled with endless car chases. I do watch other movies where I also have to (occasionally) use my head to figure things out. However, I just couldn't help but get bored with this.

Obviously, judging by the amount of positive praise there is out there for this film, then it has found an audience out there somewhere - I'm just one of those philistines who didn't appreciate it. Sorry! On the plus side, it's short!

I'm a fan of low budget horror films, from Brain dead to The Loved Ones, on to the Irish film Grabbers. However, this has the feel of a director who thinks he's directing an art movie. Lots of silences, not suspense, mind you, but just silence. Literally no sound, just two people looking at each other for 5 elongated minutes. When the action comes there is no logic to it. And finally, the sound track, or more accurately that same piece of annoying music that's randomly played regardless of what happening. All you need is 3 high piano key key to make a horror soundtrack. Watch any seventies or eighties horror. The acting was good, but that's the movies only saving grace. I wish I was living in Schwarzenegger's Total Recall, cos I got a memory I want to erase.

One of the dullest so-called thrillers I've seen in a long time, CRAWL has aspirations to be the next classic Aussie movie. The only good thing I can say about it is that director Paul China clearly knows his movies, but there's being inspired by and ripping off, and CRAWL falls into the latter category. In various press releases, China and his brother are described as the new Coen Brothers, but CRAWL is more like a Coen Brothers rip-off.

The opening scene is about the most memorable bit in it and even that rips off NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN like nobody's business. After this point we're in BLOOD SIMPLE territory, with a slow-burning plot involving a small cast who come together on one fateful night. Bloodshed ensues, but everything is dragged out to an endless degree so it becomes a chore to sit through. There's no artistry here, no suspense or gripping moments, just a film that eventually becomes silly because it's so po-faced.

It doesn't help that the script fails to breathe life into the various uninteresting characters, or that the cast members are singularly unmemorable. But by far the worst thing about this is the director himself, who has no idea of how to make a thriller work. I think even I, with zero training in film-making, could have done a better job.

This Australian neo-noir crime thriller is the film debut by the China brothers. It is all but impossible to avoid comparisons to "Blood Simple" (1984), the first film by the Coen brothers. Both films take a simple story about grubby small-time criminals and turn it into an impressive showcase of cinematic style and fluid technique.

The sketchy plot concerns a seedy bar owner (well played by William Garvey) in a rural town who hires an enigmatic Croatian hit-man (George Shevtsov) to murder an old enemy. But the assassin double-crosses him -- for reasons that are never explained. Meanwhile, Lauren Dillon (the obligatory beautiful blond girl), is alone in a big house where she frequently hears strange noises. Anyone who has ever seen a horror movie knows that searching for an intruder in an empty house is just asking for trouble. These moments, and an extended cat- and-mouse sequence later on, are set pieces for the filmmakers to show off their impressive technical skills. There are tense, Hitchcockian passages of sustained suspense that are seamlessly constructed with amazing confidence.

Unfortunately style and technique can't salvage this woefully half-baked script. There is barely enough plot to fill out the scant 75-minute story. And what little narrative there is makes no sense. The story is full of maddening lapses in logic. The hit-man, in particular, does all sorts of strange things for no apparent reason. There is no characterization (who are these people?), no explanation for motive, and no relationships to bind the characters together. Instead, the three principals are thrown together by a series of implausible coincidences.

There is just one scene with a bit of character development, which also (sort of) explains the enigmatic title. The bar owner, besides being involved in various criminal activities, is also a domineering pervert. One of his waitresses owes him money (details are never explained, of course) and she works off $100 of her debt by submissively "giving him the crawl" on all fours then going over his lap for a hard hand spanking.

Someday, this film may become a landmark, like "Blood Simple", not for what it delivers, but for what it promises. The China brothers are clearly bursting with talent and ambition and will almost certainly create some stylish and memorable films in the future. Keep an eye on them.

A seedy bar owner hires a mysterious Croatian to commit murder, but a planned double-crossing backfires when a young waitress is taken hostage. A suspenseful, yet darkly humorous chain of events builds to a bloodcurdling climax.

The biggest problem with this film is that it has a silly title. Yes, I understand why it is called that. But it is not obvious to anyone who has not yet seen the film, so it might dissuade them from giving it a chance.

There is action, blood and gore. While not a horror film, it has enough of the violent guts to enthrall horror fans, and enough action to entertain action fans. This falls somewhere in the same range as "Pulp Fiction" and "Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels"...

Some Hitchcock elements here too. but overplayed.

Pause and silence on of the powerful tools in movies but both overdone.

And one of the slowest movies I have ever seen,... very little intrigue,...action seems to get started but each time momentum dies off with long boring sequences.

So "Crawl" refers to how time crawls in this movie.

Do yourself a favor, keep your remote handy and your finger on the fast forward button,...

one sure sign of whether a movie is good is if you would like to see it again - this is a definite no.

Ram

I attended a screening of this impressive movie last night at FrightFest in Glasgow, also in attendance were the China Brothers.

After reading some critic reviews of the movie where it was described as a "slow burner" etc I prepared myself for 60 minutes of tortuous nothingness followed by 30 minutes of manic catching up before ending in a bang.

Crawl was not a slow burner. Crawl is a brilliantly crafted work of suspense, tension and horror. From the very beginnings, the China Brothers mould their characters in front of you, building them into solid centerpieces of their film - without giving too much away - the casting of the three main actors in this is perfect, and, given they only had a very limited script to work with, they deliver the tense and suspenseful scenes with powerful ease.

Location, actors, storyline, delivery and end product are all perfect, and I look forward to Brothers' future work with great anticipation, as they lavish such care and attention on their work, that they deserve a far wider release with Crawl and future films.

Don't miss this if it visits a cinema near you - you won't be disappointed.

1 point is still way too much for this, I watched it because another review said it was great, it really isn't though, unless you have no brain whatsoever.

it has a very poor acting & an even worse story, an ending you can see coming from a million miles away even if it's only 1 single shot. need some tension? just throw in a few eerie stokes on a violin, yeah, that'll do.. the whole thing is like that'll do.. cutting vegetables with eerie violin strokes can be a good thing but not when every living soul knows whats going to happen next.

For me the worst part is the lameness of the story: a guy comes home after a period a being far away to propose to his girl, but his car breaks down within visual distance of their house.. instead of walking the last 3 minutes (that's how long other characters in the movie need for it) he decides to wait for help by standing in the middle of the road & gets run over by some driver who wasn't paying attention..... -_- Really ???? stuff like that just totally knocks me of, can't help it.

The only good thing about this movie is that the main character is a hot chick, but me being a single male i realize that isn't an objective opinion ;p

Anyone giving this any rating above a 2 is a fake rating, unless they got high at the film festival when they saw the movie. Maybe some of the ratings and reviews were paid for, or just done by the crew and their friends and family. I like slow burn movies, this isn't one. It's a maybe three things happen and it takes forever kinda movie. By the end you just want it to be over.

This was so very slow progressing. I had to turn the movie off after 30mins. I couldn't watch another 50mins of something that was moving so very slow. At the 30min mark, I still had no idea what was going on. Usually an event has happened that leads I to the story line of the movie within the first 10-15 mins but not this one.

Okay there was a superlative amount of music to attempt to crank up the tension level in this one. There was a shower scene with not enough skin. There was a spanking scene with not enough skin. Scenes are dragged on a little bit too long, as there really wasn't a whole lot going on. Can't give this one any better than a 4/10.

This one definitely had scary elements to it but by the end of the movie, I had this weird feeling of being mislead. The whole movie has a very dark comedy feel to it, but it mostly leaves you feeling confused and a little bored. I never really felt the urge to laugh, but I was aware that some stuff was meant to be funny, it just wasn't enough for me to actually laugh. It's still worth watching because there are some definite creepy situations but overall, nothing new that you probably haven't already seen.

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As the other reviewer (only other one at this point of time), I did watch this at the Frightfest in Glasgow. I really liked the suspense the movie created and the filmmakers really did a nice job of capturing intense on film! While of course the movie could've been over sooner (if not for "movie logic"), this doesn't mean you have to dislike the movie for this suspension of disbelief.

I sure hope you don't, because the movie would not be worth anything, if you start thinking like this. And I know what I'm talking about, because I do have those moments myself sometimes with movies. But this one was so fantastical, so otherworldly (great cinematography btw), that I didn't watch it as anything other than a tale or a fable (with horror mixed into it of course).

While I also wouldn't exactly call it a slow burner, it isn't really fast paced either. You've got to know that this will not rush through things and will take its time to go places. I really enjoyed that and hope they'll come up with something new soon

This little Australian film is a rare hybrid of film that's not easy to place in any category or genre. It builds suspense, but is neither a thriller, a horror, a splatter or a comedy, though it's got elements of all. I found the film an enjoyable and entertaining watch, though no masterpiece. Highly inspired by both Hitchcock and Coens, to which the film pays homages more than once.

We right from the starts meet "the Croatian hit-man", which is a quiet guy of few words, as opposed to the rest of the Australians. He does a job effectively, but from there it seems to go wrong.

Well acted by all, with a bunch of odd characters in some underdeveloped roles, does keep the film from getting a large fanbase, I guess.

The film is oddly slow between the action parts. You think it will bring comedy, when it does not, and you are over and over surprised by what the persons in the film are deciding and doing. I guess a lot of movie viewing is making us expect what to happen next. Director Paul China is a British first time director and does have n interesting style. The film is very well filmed, and very cinematic. No doubt this will be an interesting director to follow for the future.

A Croation cowboy is hired as a hitman by a sleazy Aussie bar owner but then takes one of his waitresses, Marilyn, hostage in her own home. I am a bit of a fan of Australian TV and movies, Crawl was shot in Australia with a mainly Aussie cast but was financed by Canadians and made by the China brothers, who are English. It is not rich in Aussie culture unfortunately. The DVD cover promised so much, many accolades are quoted, but sadly it failed to deliver. For a reasonably short movie (78 minutes on DVD) it felt longer, at times it is painfully slow. We get over-dramatic music combined with stretches of total silence. The elderly hitman, credited as The Stranger and played by George Shevtsov, is simply awful. He's a bad actor and just looks ridiculous, how one critic favourably compared Crawl to the classic "No Country For Old Men" is laughable. On the plus side pretty Georgina Haig as Marilyn is perfectly watchable, and the four kills are all quite bloody. The "unforgettable climax" is just a damp squib. The movie won several awards at Screamfest Horror Festival, the competition couldn't have been up to much! Very disappointing, I may hang on to the DVD (which thankfully I bought very cheap from a charity shop) as a cure for insomnia.

I have seen this movie 10 years ago , had some false memory this was ok movie, its not,, its bad, so bad its insane

The acting is from hell , the direction is from another planet and dont get me start with the story, Ive seen schooltheatres doing better stories than this sloppy mess

Who actually like this ? Some joker said this was as good as cohen movies, what an insult to call this abomination cohen, this movie had material for 20 minutes, but to drag it out and expend it as long as possible they do everything in slow motion , If someone walk up in a stair, he take one step at the time and you need to watch it all the way up , and can someone please kill the guy with the cello playing 3 tones in the background

This is pure garbage, why do they even do trash like this, we have absolute nothing, no script, no money, no actors lets make a movie.

The story is great, the actors are great but it is slow paced. The dialogue was very little. It would be more interesting if they added a bit more to the story. The killing over the dept could be more developed to justify the employment of the Croatian. But later we find out why. A bit flimsy in that area.

The photography & the music draw you as what will happen next. The Croatian was very creepy, great acting. However, again if the three main actors had more screen time, elaborating more on their parts would enhance the story.

The choice of the color of the jag, chocolate, adds to the creepy flavor of the Croatian. The chasing of Georgina round the house can be longer. I think the china brothers have a good vision & I am sure it will be greater in future films.

This comedic, thriller and horror movie was awesome. The plot was believable and everyone in the production added something positive to the small town feel in the movie. The pace was right to the point without a bunch of wasted side stories.