Australia's "Crawlspace" isn't going to bring glory back to IFC Midnight single-handed like it was Conan hoisting the severed head of Thulsa Doom into the air or anything, but at the very least it is a life preserver to keep it above water, so to speak. It probably won't be finding its way into my collection, unless I need to round out a "5 for 10" deal or something, but at the very least it didn't offend me. And after seeing something like "Rites of Spring," that's such a relief that it almost makes the whole thing worth it on that fact alone.
The story starts us off cold with a woman waking up to find herself laying in one of those giant "only exists in movies" air shafts, with a giant surgical scar on her head and mutilated bodies all around her. From her reaction it's pretty clear this is not something she was expecting to wake up to. Looking at her wrist she sees a metal doohickey that says "EVE" on it. Now, Eve is clearly supposed to be her name, but given the fact that she's dressed just like her I'm choosing to believe that it's really Chell from "Portal" and that GLaDOS has had a particularly fun afternoon.
"Well done. Here come the test results: 'You are a horrible person.'
That's what it says. 'A horrible person.' We weren't even testing for
that."
Now, anybody worth two braincells would instantly put several things together here from the first 40 seconds. First is that Eve is obviously an experiment given the brain surgery scar. Second is that given her name, she's the first of a new line of most likely weaponized humans, probably created by a shady government. Third is that she clearly killed those people in the vent with her, and she's got some kind of amnesia. It's all pretty obvious, and yeah that's pretty much what's going on. I don't feel bad about spoiling that. If you didn't pick up on it, clearly you aren't a big consumer of science fiction, and I feel bad for you.
The point I'm trying to illustrate here is that there isn't a whole lot of innovation going on with the story of "Crawlspace." That's not to say it's bad, though. Despite the fact that we may have seen stories very similar to this before (in fact it's very similar to a plot you'd see in a video game), it's got enough style and intrigue to keep our attention throughout. And dare I say, this is probably close to what you would have gotten had the "Resident Evil" franchise been given a proper adaptation.
You know, despite not having a plot anything like "Resident Evil." And stuff. SHUT UP I WATCHED THIS AND YOU DIDN'T SO YOU HAVE TO TAKE MY WORD FOR IT.
The majority of the film is following around a squad of soldiers who have been sent into the facility to wipe out the population after things go very, very bad inside. As per the course for situations like this, the soldiers come across people they can't bring themselves to kill despite the fact they are trained for that very purpose. That crap usually bugs me, and yeah it bugged me at first here, too, but at least by the end an entirely plausible explanation is given to us. So I can't really be that mad. Besides, there's no movie if they capped Eve in the dome the second they met her, so I guess they've got me there.
Along the way they met some crazy experiments, crazy people, and crazy people who have had experiments done on them. Lots of things get shot, people get torn to shreds, minds are literally blown, and some surgical saws are taken to the face. All in all, it's quite the eventful afternoon.
"For my next trick, I'm going to make the audience very uncomfortable!"
I think there were three reasons why "Crawlspace" worked fairly well for me. The first was that it was subtle enough in its revealing of the plot that, despite the cliches which worked their way into the story, there was a great sense of mystery to it which kept me invested and curious throughout. And to be honest there were some things they threw in which I was not expecting, including a very well done framing device at the end which left a nice aftertaste once the credits started rolling.
Secondly, the film is claustrophobic and cramped enough to be fairly intense from the setting alone, and the Fincher-esque color palette gives it a great sleazy sheen that reminds me of "Alien 3," which love it or hate it is a gorgeous movie. It's also nice to see a film that is mostly very dark but is still discernible as to what's going on. The lighting in "Crawlspace" is doing a lot of legwork for the mood, and deserves a lot of credit.
Lastly the cast is strong enough to make you really care about the characters, again, as stock as they may be. You really don't want to see bad things happen to them, as much as that is a guaranteed certainty. It's surprising how often movies forget to have likable characters, but here they are all pretty likeable even if they're jerks. Amber Clayton as Eve was mysterious and fun to watch, as was Peta Sergeant as the not-Vasquez of the squad of soldiers. My favorite though was Eddie Baroo as the soldier named "Fourpack." Because he's a couple cans short of a six, see?
"C'mon daan ta Sydney. We'll geet tageetha, have a few laughs..."
You know, I've seen a lot of movies like this in my time. A lot. A hell of a lot. But that doesn't mean that I can't enjoy one that comes along and does it well. It's frankly a minor miracle when they're not terrible. And "Crawlspace" mostly certainly is not terrible. In fact, had it been a video game movie, it probably would have been one of the better ones ever made. It certainly feels like one. So take that for what it's worth.
I actually really like this trailer.
THE BOTTOM LINE - "Crawlspace" is a fun, bloody action flick with a dash of science fiction to give it a slight "X-Files" vibe. Granted it's a hyper violent episode of it, but Scully and Mulder would be right at home. If an action packed, R-rated "X-Files" episode sounds like a good time to go, have at it, hoss. You could much worse than this.
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