Review by Nia Edwards-Behi
Crawl or Die has got one of those posters that immediately makes me roll my eyes. Girl, in her skivvies, dodgy Photoshop. That eye-roll reaches critical when I remember that this film used to be called Crawl Bitch Crawl, an even more terrible title now that I’ve seen the film. But, credit to the film, this was nowhere near the travesty I was expecting from my first impressions.
The premise is simple: a security team protecting the last fertile human woman on a mission to a new Earth find themselves and their quarry trapped in a labyrinthine tunnel system when it turns out that this planetary safe haven is, well, really not so safe. The scout of the team, Tank (Nicole Alonso), finds herself increasingly fending for herself as the tunnels become tighter and the alien threat gets closer.
From the outset of this review I ought to stress that for what is clearly a very low budget film, Crawl or Die is impressive. Were it not for some frankly terrible sound design, its low budget would barely be noticeable. This is self-made, micro-budget work, and it is credit to director/writer/editor Oklahoma Ward and star/producer Alonso that the film is as good as it is. That being said, there is plenty I didn’t like about the film. Knowing the micro-budget nature of the project I feel a bit mean-spirited outlining some of those things, so I do really hope that the comments are as constructive as they can be.
As I’ve already alluded to, there is a big problem with the sound design of the film. Luckily, the film doesn’t feature much dialogue, and this is a wise choice, because the dialogue is, at times, unintelligible. This is partly because it’s not been recorded well but also because there is an incessant cacophony of noise playing on the soundtrack. Given the filming conditions – in tiny, 50ft tubes – I do wonder if the choice of noisy, distracting soundtrack is masking elements of whatever was recorded. Either way, I found it quite frustrating at times, though eventually it became the white noise I presume it was meant to be.
The script for the film is quite ingenious as just enough information is passed on to the viewer that we understand the (admittedly basic) narrative. The dialogue, when there is any, is weak at best, and there is a truly awful exchange that ends the film. The film is at its strongest when there are far fewer players on the screen and fewer still words being exchanged. The downside to the excellent and increasingly claustrophobic setting is that we have very little idea of the outside world, and no information is provided of it via the characters, bar one, slightly ham-fisted, flashback early on which establishes the film’s premise. When the film drags a bit – and drag it does at times – a bit of real-world grounding might have helped.
Thankfully, the film rests primarily on Tank’s shoulders, and Alonso does enough to make her likeable and believable within the film’s necessarily restrictive setting. I enjoyed that no personal information was given about her, all we know is that she is an elite member of the planet’s best security squad, and that’s all we need to know, too. This is an astonishingly demanding role in terms of its physicality and Alonso pulls it off incredibly well, and it’s refreshing to see a genuinely physically demanding role, rather than one edited to look like one. I certainly do think the shedding of her clothes is clumsily done in the film, just like on the poster, even if not entirely unnecessary once the tunnels get smaller and smaller. I suppose there are thankfully fewer gratuitous arse shots than I expected, even if the very nature of the film requires that there are, indeed, plenty of them.
Ultimately, I think Crawl or Die under-serves itself by ‘just’ aiming to be a thrilling, action-packed film about a badass central character. While that’s all well and good, a little less noise and a bit more pause for thought would, for me at least, have made the film a lot more interesting. Its premise that a virus has made almost all women on Earth infertile, and that the last remaining fertile woman must as a result be considered a possession rather than a person, is extremely under-developed. The film was at its strongest in its middle section when Tank and Package are alone. Alonso and Torey Byrne play excellently together, their under-stated dialogue really making them work to make us care, and they’re successful. If a bit more of the film had been like this – rather than focusing on Tank the Solo Badass – I think I would have been more impressed.
Just as the potential for a more interesting narrative is underdeveloped in the film, its hyperactive sense of what an action film should look like is overdeveloped. The film is ingeniously shot in its tunnels and really effectively conveys a sense of claustrophobia. It’s a shame, then, that there are unnecessary flourishes of dodgy CGI effects at times, as they’re really not needed. Thankfully these flourishes are confined to the earliest part of the film. Likewise, we really didn’t need to see as much of the creature as we did – more so given its unsurprising similarity to a certain xenomorph – and the few scenes of gore don’t really add much to the film as a whole. A bit more faith in Ward’s own directorial ability to carry the film would have made for a better final product, I think.
All in all, Crawl or Die is an entertaining enough film once it gets going, and certainly impressive for its budget. It would have been much better at a trimmer 75-minutes rather than its somewhat bloated 90, as shimmying through tunnels can get a bit dull after a while. The promise of sequels doesn’t entirely fill me with hope, but I think with a little bit less blind-adulation of its main character and a bit more due attention to the potentially interesting story that’s to be told here and the sequel could well out-do the first.
Crawl or Die has its UK TV premiere on the Horror Channel (Sky 319, Virgin 149, Freesat 138, Freeview 70) at 10.55pm tonight, 17th July 2015.