Crawlers

Let’s face it: too many people do whatever they want without thinking about anyone else. You see it every day in the way people drive and behave in public. That same attitude can show up when people travel abroad, find an insect or animal they think would make a cool pet, and bring it home. Then boredom sets in, and their new pet gets released into the wild. We’ve all heard stories about invasive plants and insects, but what if the unwanted visitor was a spider with a taste for humans? Luckily—or maybe unluckily—Ángel Gómez Hernández gives us a glimpse of that nightmare in his creepy-crawly spider movie, Crawlers.

George (Chris Rogers) has just returned from a trip to an exotic destination, and he isn’t feeling too well. The culprit appears to be a nasty bite on his back. It doesn’t take long to discover what’s behind it: George collapses, and a bunch of spiders burst out of the wound. Meanwhile, the building’s manager, Serena (Matilda Lutz), is already having a rough day. Unfortunately for her and the other residents, it’s about to get much worse. The police lock down the building while they investigate George’s death, leaving everyone trapped inside with a whole lot of unwelcome guests. Now it’s the residents versus the spiders. Serena manages to get word out about what they’re facing, but all they can do is hope they make it out alive.

Written by Jayson Rothwell, Crawlers won’t be winning any awards for its screenplay. The plot is full of ridiculous moments, and some of the dialogue makes you appreciate silence. But let’s be honest: we didn’t come for the writing. We came to be creeped out by spiders, and, at least early on, Crawlers delivers. I already shake out my shoes before putting them on to make sure nothing has crawled inside. After watching this movie, you might find yourself checking a few other things, too. Those moments involving a single spider tap into our everyday fears, but they can only carry the movie so far. That’s when Hernández takes Crawlers off the deep end.

The movie starts by playing on our fear of spiders, then trades those scares for increasingly ridiculous situations. Add in characters who are mostly uninteresting—and sometimes downright irritating—and you might find yourself rooting for the spiders. There isn’t much else to recommend here. A movie full of spiders has plenty of potential to scare, but Crawlers just can’t find its legs. The story is too predictable, and Hernández pulls out every trick, from a spider’s-eye view to a baby in need of rescuing, to give us something to care about.

For me, it just doesn’t work. I had a little fun, and the eighty-six-minute runtime helps, but by the end, I mostly wanted to reach for a can of Raid and put an end to the whole thing.

Brian Taylor

Member of the North Texas Film Critics Association, and lover of all things Cinema