I love it when a movie lives up to your expectations, no matter how low they might be. This is a horror, thriller that doesn't pretend to have some deep comment about global warming or the place on animals in human habitats. Let people who want to argue about the right of coyotes to wander freely in suburban neighborhoods have their conversation someplace else. This movie is simple. Take some sympathetic characters, put them in jeopardy, and try to scare the crap out of the audience. Very basic and there are no supernatural elements to it, so those skeptics out there when it comes to ghost stories don't have to worry, because this stuff is real [or at least as real as you can expect in a movie.]
There are a dozen or so people listed in the cast but in reality, this is a two person story. Haley, a college student on the swimming team travels back home looking for her father, as a massive hurricane is about to hit Florida. They end up trapped in the basement of their old house, battling alligators who have moved in with the rising flood waters. The premise sells itself, this is a high concept low budget feature. Man against nature is a recurring theme in lots of films, often with a philosophical bent to the plot line. "The Grey" and "The Edge" are two examples that come to mind. There are however lots of examples of movies that do the same thing without any metaphysics or spiritual overtone. Last summer we got "The Meg" which is simply a giant shark movie. A few years ago, there was "Bait" about a similar circumstance with people trapped in a department store after a tidal wave and sharks going after them. These movies are only interested in scaring you for ninety minutes and giving you a reason to eat popcorn in public.
Barry Pepper plays the Dad, who is a perpetual cheerleader for his daughter and pushed her as she was learning to become a champion swimmer. The relationship is a little strained because the parents broke up and Haley thinks it's her fault because he neglected Mom to boost her career. That is just filler for the moments when we are catching our breath between gator attacks. This is a movie filled with jump scares and dramatic plot complications every five minutes. Every time a little hope creeps in, the gators in the story manage to crush it, and if the gators don't then the hurricane does. Admittedly, this is a movie that strains credibility in a few places. Our heroes get injured in ways that most of us would go into shock over and maybe end up in a coma. These two just strap up their limbs and keep fighting on. I turned to my own daughter right after the film and said, "Yeah, we'd be dead."
The creativity in this story is primarily based around building up one objective after another, figuring out how to overcome it, throwing in a plot complication and then adding a visual moment of terror. It works over and over. Kaya Scodelario gamely crawls through mud, effuse, rats and body parts as Haley. She is also fine in the non-action scenes as well but she got her check from submitting to some pretty grueling physical scenes. Pepper has a few moments in the last quarter of the movie, but he is mostly immobile in the first part of the film. Credulity is also tested when he has to do some of the physical stuff and his character has been hampered by substantial injuries but he carries on anyway.
