Forget
about killer leprechauns. Body-snatcher aliens are the real St. Patrick’s Day
horror. Cleverly, they will invade a college town on the night of St. Patrick’s.
It is because of the drinking and the poor judgement, unreliable witnesses, and
highly vulnerable victims that results. However, the townie drug dealer is an
alien conspiracy buff, so she is surprisingly prepared. She will explain to her
online followers how it all went down in Brandon Zuck’s Crawlers, the
latest installment in the Blumhouse-produced Into the Dark, which
premieres this Friday on Hulu.
Misty
thought Chloe was her BFF, but they have been on the outs, ever since the
latter failed to offer adequate support after the former was roofied in a frat
house. Instead of being there, Chloe has flitted off to a new bestie, the snarky
New Yorker (is there any other kind?), Yuejin. However, Misty still charges
after her shallow pal when she drunkenly leaves with another predatory brother from
the fateful fraternity. Fortunately, Shauna, Chloe’s drug dealer reluctantly agrees
to accompany Misty. However, inside the house they find evidence of sinister
alien skullduggery instead of Chloe.
Eventually,
Misty and Aaron, a bro who was apparently doppelgangered by the aliens, will
come to believe Shauna is right about the body-doubling invaders. Being
believed is important in this film, whether it be Misty’s presumed assault or
Shauna’s mother, who witnessed an earlier alien landing on an earlier St.
Patrick’s night, decades ago.
Wow,
Blumhouse really has it info fraternities, judging from this film and last year’s
Black Christmas remake. At least Crawlers still manages to be
fun. Basically, it is nostalgic, like-you-know trip down dead teenager memory
lane. It is easy to think of it as an updated riff on Fred Dekker’s Night of
the Creeps, but it isn’t as wildly madcap as that would sound. Instead, it
fits somewhere in between the Syfy original movie Killer High and last
year’s back-to-school edition of Into the Dark, School Spirit
(which was directed by Mike Gan, who co-scripted Crawlers).
Giorgia
Whigham is a blast as Shauna and Olivia Liang is amusingly caustic and catty as
Yuejin. Likewise, Jude Demorest portrays Chloe as an appropriately shallow and
entitled hard-partying mess. Unfortunately for Pepi Sonuga, she is left playing
Misty, the painfully earnest one, but she does her best to suggest an arc of
empowerment for her character.
Honestly,
it is hard to go wrong with body-snatcher movies, so it is weird that we do not
get more of them. Crawlers is not exactly an instant classic, but it
gets the job done. Recommended for the attitude and the genre traditions it
represents, Crawlers starts streaming this Friday (3/6), as part of the
current season of Into the Dark on Hulu.