An interesting story (A team of soldiers escorting the last fertile woman off world but end up trapped in a strange underground complex where the tunnels become increasingly smaller and tighter while being hunted by an alien lifeform killing them one by one) slightly brought down by a minimal budget. Actually, minimal would be the overstatement of the year. Some of the sets are unbelievably cheap, you can hear it being made of wood as they touch it. And let's discuss the alien creature. Seen Alien? Oklahama Ward has. And added spider legs. Gigers estate could sue (and win).
But it still works, it really does. I love Alien ripoffs and Crawl or die is far from the worst I've seen. The creature might be "inspired" but Ward took the creepiest bits out of Alien and used them well here, the glimpses of the creature crawling through the tunnels right behind the soldiers are quite effective. After reading some comments on Imdb about how the producer gave him a bit of money for cgi but realizing that it would look awful makes me happy that he chose to do it this way. And frankly, it looks more like the creature from the lovely Forbidden world that also was straight out Alien, which also was a quite clear ripoff. Ripoffs rule and I use that word in a positive meaning.
So, maybe mainly for Alien ripoff addicts and claustrophobics. Like me. It's an accomplished movie and there is a lot of tension, especially towards the end when the creature is so close that it almost can touch our leading lady. Let's hope Ward gets a budget next time, either remaking this with better production values or a sequel that makes him realize his visions a bit stronger.
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