Bullet Points: Crawlspace
You never can tell what type of movie you’ll find on Hulu or Netflix at one in the morning. I came across Crawlspace after scrolling by a bunch of Sharknado sequels before finally pulling up a quick IMDB search of the film and realizing that it sounded way cooler than the Hulu description. The recent passing of Bill Paxton makes this film feel even more necessary as the homages to Aliens are clearly there and we all need more things in our lives to remind us of the late, great Bill Paxton.
Synopsis: A group of elite soldiers are sent into Pine Gap, the Australian version of Area 51, to extract scientists who are under an unknown menace. The team finds that the scientists had been experimenting on the inhabitants and now a powerful being is threatening to destroy the entire facility.
- Bring on the Death: Director Justin Dix has put together an incredible cast of people that I’ve never seen before but ones that I’ll definitely be checking out again. It’s a film that, from the very first moments, grabbed my attention and left me wanting to see more of the craziness of the facility. It also made me want to see a vast amount of blood sprayed all over the place. I mean, a psychological science fiction film with a badass group of soldiers sounds like just the thing for me.
- She’s a beauty: Amber Clayton is definitely a stone cold fox but believe it or not I’m talking more about the look of the film. It has a very distinct look that, by design, made me think of some of the cool-ass sci-fi movies of the 70’s and 80’s. The sound and music people really did some good work too. It reminded me of the other rad sci-fi flick Infini that I reviewed a while back. Both of them looked and felt like they had a lot of love and passion in them and not just a lot of money.
- I love it: One of my biggest pet peeves in movies is when they have a group of spec ops guys and they don’t look, act, or talk like they do in real life. It’s one of the reasons that I hate Mark Wahlberg. But the crew in Crawlspace remind me of a real group of operators. They have the camaraderie that builds within a group of people who have come close to death a time or two.
- A Taste of Things to Come?: I didn’t know much of anything about Crawlspace before I started watching it. I scrolled past it on Hulu and thought I’d give it a shot. I’ve had good luck watching Australian movies in the past and have always seemed to be impressed with the acting and amount of gore that the directors can fit into a low budget. Crawlspace wasn’t much different than those other movies I mentioned but there was one scene that threw me for a loop. After the team infiltrates the compound and discovers one of the patients half out of her mind. They decide to take her with them until they are suddenly under attack by some sort of massive gorilla creature. I don’t know what the hell the creature is or why it’s there but it looks fantastic and all I could think about was how it was some sort of mashup between Aliens and Congo. If you can’t get excited for that then we just can’t be friends.
- Back Down to Earth: Sadly, the incredible hybrid monster movie was not to be. The gorilla creature only made it a couple of minutes and we’re left with no explanation or follow up on the insane experiments that had been going on in the facility before the emergency. It was the biggest bummer so far.
- Is that you Michael?: Aussie Ditch Davey not only plays the leader of the team of soldiers but he also looks incredibly similar to Michael Biehn. He also develops a very odd relationship with the mysterious ‘Eve’, who may or may not be the ultimate killing machine. The team slowly find themselves falling deeper and deeper into the hellish nightmare that unfolds in the compound and the next thing I knew I was watching Jean Grey and Professor X blowing people’s heads off!
