By Susan Granger
Special to WestportNow
From “Jaws” to “The Shallows,” featuring Blake Lively vs. the shark — there have been a number of aquatic actioners, strategically timed to make us wary of what lurks in the water. Now there’s “Crawl.”
A Category-5 hurricane is headed toward Gainesville, Florida, where top-ranked college swimmer Haley Keller (Kaya Scodelario) is trying to call her semi-estranged father (Barry Pepper), who has obviously ignored mandatory evacuation orders.
Making her way down wind-swept roads, Haley spies his truck at their childhood home which is up For Sale following her parents’ divorce. After retrieving the family dog, she locates her injured dad in the basement crawl space. He’s imprisoned by a 20-foot-long alligator that lumbered in through the storm drain pipe.
Soon, they’re both trapped down there amid the arrival of more alligators, as torrential rain threatens to flood the entire area. Can they get out? And what faces them when and if they do?
Scripted with just enough black humor by brothers Michael and Shawn Rasmussen, tautly directed by Alexendre Aja and produced by Sam Raimi, it’s classic claustrophobic horror.
What makes it work is that the daughter/father characters are developed with detailed specificity and impressively embodied by Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper. Their motivations are understandable and the plot is unfettered by typical clichés and pitfalls, like cloying sidekicks and gratuitous nudity.
As for the ravenous reptiles that are attracted to sound and motion, as opposed to sight and smell, I couldn’t tell which predators were real, animatronic or CGI.
Trivia: The concept was inspired by a true alligator event during Hurricane Florence. And basements are very rare in southwest Florida because most of the state is at, or below, sea level, so the ground is largely sand.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Crawl” bites off a scary, squirming 7, becoming a truly terrifying thrill-ride, concluding with Bill Haley & His Comets’ rendition of “See You Later, Alligator.”
It’s impossible to watch “Midsommar,” Ari Aster’s pastoral/pagan horror film, without recalling Robin Hardy’s mystery-thriller “The Wicker Man” (1973), set in the Scottish Hebrides. Under the watchful eye of Christopher Lee, the Celtic population danced around a maypole before making a human sacrifice.
Hardy then made “The Wicker Tree” (2011) about an American singer and her boyfriend who run afoul of cultists in a Scottish village. I’m intimately familiar with that because my husband (James Mapes) plays a Texas preacher, and I did several interviews with Robin Hardy during the filming.
In what’s almost a “Wicker Man” remake, writer/director Aster’s story revolves around Dani (Florence Pugh), who is traumatized, learning that her bi-polar sister murdered their parents and committed suicide. For years, Dani has been in a rocky relationship with self-absorbed Christian (Jack Raynor).
When Christian’s Swedish pal Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) suggests they visit the remote commune where he grew up during a once-in-a-century, midsummer purification festival, they’re off with some other graduate school anthropologists to the picturesque, rural village of Harga, filled with runic symbols.
Runes are an integral part of Harga’s culture. They’re an ancient alphabet, prophetically stitched into costumes, intricately carved into wood/stone and pivotal in the feasts’ dining-table arrangement. (For more lore, read Ralph H. Blum’s “Book of Runes: A Compass for Navigating in Turbulent Times.”)
Under the leadership of Siv (Gunnel Fred), the matriarch/officiant, everyone in Harga divides life into four 18-year divisions: childhood, pilgrimage, working and elderhood. Hallucinogens are rampant.
Since they’re unwitting ‘outsiders,’ Dani and Christian’s friends meet with horrific dismemberment and death, until Dani, as May Day Queen, must make a dreadful choice in the film’s final sequence.
Director/screenwriter Ari Aster (“Hereditary”) calls the malevolent melodrama “an apocalyptic breakup film.” For its ghoulish intensity and ludicrous effectiveness, he owes a great deal to cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski and production designer Henrik Svensson.
On the Granger Gauge, “Midsommar” is a derivative, sadistic 6, filled with sinister, nightmarish rituals.
Having lived in Connecticut for many years, I had the pleasure of spending time with ‘ghost-hunters’ Lorraine and Ed Warren and saw Annabelle in her glass case in their home/museum. Even though they’ve both died, the fictionalized tales of their paranormal investigations continue.
Set in 1968, “Annabelle Comes Home” finds supernaturalists Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) taking custody of creepy Annabelle from two frightened nurses who claim that a demon has taken up residence inside the malevolent doll in an attempt to possess a human soul.
As they cautiously transport Annabelle home, their car breaks down near Maryville Cemetery, where Annabelle, perched in the back seat, apparently rouses the dead from their graves. Clairvoyant Lorraine believes she’s a conduit or beacon for other spirits, as Ed is almost run down by a semitrailer.
When the Warrens arrive at their split-level house, Annabelle is ensconced in their Artifacts Room, along with evil objects like the Toy Monkey, Spirit Bell, Black Shuck, and haunted Samurai armor.
After a priest sprinkles holy water while reciting a protective blessing. Annabelle is apparently immobilized until there’s an unexpected visitor.
Preparing a 10th birthday celebration for the Warrens’ daughter Judy (Mackenna Grace), Daniela (Katie Sarife), a friend of their teenage babysitter Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman), steals the key and sneaks into the Artifacts Room, hoping to achieve a spiritual reconnection with her recently deceased dad.
Ignoring the “Warning: Positively Do Not Open” sign, she approaches Annabelle’s case, releasing the doll’s demonic power to animate the knife-wielding bride and a grim reaper known as The Ferryman whose funeral coins get scattered about, among other ghoulish things.
“Annabelle” screenwriter Gary Dauberman makes his directing debut, creating a predictably tense atmosphere with creaking doors and jump scares, as Judy and the two teenagers endure a night of terror.
On the Granger Gauge, “Annabelle Comes Home” scares up a spooky 6. While there’s no post-credits scene, the “Conjuring” spin offs will inevitably continue.
(Editor’s Note: Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has been on radio/television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic for many years. See her reviews at www.susangranger.com.)
