Crawl is a movie that takes a classic idea and a classic horror genre and updates it for a more modern audience. It’s equal parts scary and campy, and it takes its relatively simple premise about as far as it could possibly go. It’s the story of Haley and her dad Dave. When a massive hurricane heads towards their home state of Florida, Haley goes home to check in on her missing father. She starts off believing that the hurricane is the danger they must escape, but they both ultimately find themselves trapped in their home’s basement crawl space, under attack from some ravenous alligators.
Creature features are a classic and iconic genre of horror film, and there is no scarcity of options if anyone ever finds themselves in the mood for one. Crawl is an undoubtedly fun offering within the creature feature world, and here are 10 more movies that anyone who enjoyed Crawl is guaranteed to love.
10 Cloverfield Lane
When it comes to creating horror movies that are genuinely scary, there are luckily a lot of different human fears that can be exploited. One fear that both Crawl and 10 Cloverfield Lane exploit is claustrophobia. There’s nothing scarier than feeling like you’re being attacked by a terrifying villain and you have no place that you can even escape to.
10 Cloverfield Lane ups the ante because the movie spends most of its time leaving its protagonist –and by extension its audience– wondering whether or not the threat that everyone is hiding from is even real. Much like Crawl and the original Cloverfield, there are some scary creature elements too.
Mimic
Director Guillermo del Toro is one of the most renowned and beloved directors working today, but obviously that wasn’t always the case. Everyone has to start somewhere, and before del Toro was the directing legend he is now, he was making movies like his 90s horror flick, Mimic.
There are, unfortunately, a lot of different ways in which people can run into scary beasts beneath the surface of the earth. While Crawl takes place within the crawl space of a Florida home, the bulk of Mimic’s horrifying movie moments takes place in the gross and grimy sewers of New York City.
Jurassic Park
One of the obvious themes of Crawl (and any other creature feature featuring an alligator or crocodile as the main antagonist) is that these animals are essentially dinosaurs that have managed to survive for millions of years after the rest of the dinosaurs went extinct. So, a perfect follow-up for Crawl is obviously something like Jurassic Park, right?
It’s pretty hard to top pseudo-dinosaurs when it comes to scary and dangerous animals in films, but this Steven Spielberg classic obviously manages to top that by literally bringing dinosaurs back to life. With disastrous results, because of course it’s a disaster.
Anaconda
If anyone out there loved the heck out of Crawl and hasn’t yet seen the absolute iconic classic Anaconda, what are you waiting for? Anaconda was actually surprisingly successful, and if a young Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube aren’t enough to entice anyone to give the movie a shot, then there is always the giant killer snake.
Some movies like to back off of the cheese factor and take themselves too seriously, but Anaconda goes in the opposite direction and it totally works. In the years since its release, Anaconda has become a bit of a cult classic, and anyone who liked Crawl is guaranteed to love it.
Snakes On A Plane
Alligators in a crawl space isn’t too far off from Snakes On A Plane, right? It’s always a fun time when you have people trapped in a small space with dangerous animals, and Snakes On A Plane has the bonus factor of Samuel L. Jackson in all of his glory.
At least Sam and all of the other passengers on this particularly unlucky plane have a few more lines of defense than Haley and her dad did, but the extra space and extra people that Snakes On A Plane has over Crawl makes for an even more exciting and adventurous movie.
Lake Placid
This one might seem like the most obvious suggestion for anyone who loved Crawl, but in the event that you haven’t heard of Lake Placid, it’s yet another amazing entry into the world of alligator- and crocodile-based horror films.
Lake Placid is merely the first entry into the entire Lake Placid franchise. It doesn’t actually take place at the lake that shares the same name, but at a fictional lake called Black Lake, which is unfortunately being terrorized by a giant, 30-foot crocodile. This crocodile is much bigger than Crawl’s alligators, and the fact that it’s not confined within a certain space makes it even scarier.
Deep Blue Sea
Although alligators and crocodiles have carved out their own very specific niche in the creature feature horror movie world, when it comes to horror movies about dangerous animals, it’s going to be hard to ever unseat sharks from their position at the top of the leaderboard.
Deep Blue Sea is a particularly fun and campy entry in the world of shark-based horror movies. The film centers around scientists using sharks to research potential cures for Alzheimer’s. Their experiments, sadly, result in smarter, more dangerous, and apparently more bloodthirsty sharks. Watching a bunch of people fleeing from sharks really never gets old.
The Descent
The alligators in Crawl metaphorically bit off more than they could chew when they decided to go after Haley and her father, and in that sense, Crawl shares a lot of thematic similarities with The Descent.
The Descent is a movie about a group of spelunking friends who decide to explore a cave and are surprised to find some homicidal humanoid creatures inside of it. The Descent definitely makes great use of its environment and of its terrifying villains, and when escape and survival is the only end goal, it makes for a very thrilling story. Crawl and The Descent certainly have that in common.
The Meg
When it comes to creating a classic horror creature feature, it seems like each new film needs to up the ante in comparison to its predecessors in order to stand out. So, how exactly does someone one-up the classic shark horror movie?
Well, apparently, by resurrecting the megalodon from extinction and making it the antagonist for a movie. This is the basic story line of The Meg, and aside from bringing a bigger and scarier shark to the table, the film offers up quite a few fun and scary surprises. It’s a great option for anyone who loves a scary creature.
Godzilla
Anyone who enjoyed Crawl surely enjoys any film with the premise of an extra-destructive lizard-like creature. The ultimate take on that premise? Godzilla, of course. Crawl fans will probably enjoy any iteration of the entire Godzilla franchise, and anyone looking for a Godzilla movie to watch is certainly spoiled for choice.
When it comes to Crawl, though, the 2014 reboot of Godzilla is probably the best and most exciting choice. Watching an unimaginable monster wreak havoc is a classic movie trope that never gets old and never feels less fun, so anyone who is itching for some animal destruction after Crawl is guaranteed to love Godzilla.
