Editorials
When Nature Attacks: 5 Horror Movies to Watch Ahead of ‘Crawl’
Between the buzz from recent footage shown at CinemaCon and Paramount’s shifting the release date up a full month, Alexandre Aja’s Crawl is quickly becoming one of the summer’s most anticipated horror movies. The film stars Kaya Scoledario as a woman trying to save her father during a Category 5 hurricane in Florida, but finds herself trapped in a flooding house and fighting for her life against alligators.
Humans versus predatorial animals is a long-running subset in horror, but even more niche are movies where humans have to battle vicious beasts while trapped by unpleasant weather conditions. Before you see Crawl, these 5 nature attacks movies should tide you over.
Cujo
Comparatively speaking, the elemental factor in Cujo is tame compared to hurricanes and tsunamis. But there’s something far more real and relatable about being trapped in a hot car under the blazing sun. Donna and Tad Trenton take the broken family Ford Pinto to their repairman to get the alternator fixed, but find themselves forced to take refuge in it thanks to a rabid St. Bernard. If they leave, well, they risk death. But staying inside their makeshift shelter means death too, in the form of heatstroke and dehydration. It’s a no-win situation that makes for a harrowing thriller. In Stephen King’s novel, it’s the elements that causes death to a major character, not the rabid animal.
Deep Blue Sea
Intelligence enhanced super sharks versus the scientists who made them serve as the setup of this fun horror movie, and the battle for survival is compounded by a serious storm. Granted the storm doesn’t serve as big of a role, the sharks are monstrous enough, but it does create a whole lot of problems for the humans. When the first shark attack happens, a helicopter is called in to medically evacuate the victim, but the arrival of the storm causes a ripple effect that leads to the helicopter crashing. The resulting destruction means a heavily flooded facility where the sharks can now swim freely to stalk their prey. The storm also means more help won’t be on its way anytime soon.
Rogue
Inspired by the true story of a crocodile that attacked boats in the ‘70s, adorably dubbed Sweetheart, Rogue tells of a group of river cruise tourists being marooned by an attack on their boat. The group’s only safe haven from the giant beast is a small, muddy island in the middle of the river. It’s not exactly ideal, and it’s made even worse thanks to a rising tide that will fully submerge the island by nightfall. That’s right; it doesn’t take much for mother nature to completely foil survival plans in a fight against a giant crocodile. Just high tide. It’s intense and brutal, and we’d expect nothing less from director Greg McLean (Wolf Creek, The Belko Experiment).
Bait
In this Australian-Singaporean disaster horror film, it’s a tsunami that leaves a group of people stranded in a flooded grocery story. Mid-robbery no less. The devastation to the building, flooding, and volatile tensions between people would be enough to send stress levels into overdrive, but the tsunami also trapped a few hungry great white sharks in the store, too. While the plot setup sounds outlandish and implausible, Bait is way more fun than it sounds. Plus, at least one pass of the script was written by Russell Mulcahy (Highlander), who would’ve also directed if not for prior engagements. Mulcahy is no stranger to Australian nature-based horror having directed 1984’s Razorback.
Burning Bright
As if Kelly doesn’t have enough problems to deal with between her mother’s suicide and caring for her autistic brother, someone has sealed all the doors and windows in her house and let loose a ravenous tiger. She can’t call for help, either, because a hurricane has downed all phone communication. This movie deserves more of an audience than it’s received so far, and shares the most in common with Crawl in terms of basic plot- at least on paper. A modest budgeted thriller that brings genuine suspense, and the scenes with the tiger were well done.
From child-eating witches to village-burning dragons, fairy tales have always had a foot in the horror genre. That’s why it makes sense that, for every The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia, there are also darker and more adult-oriented stories about magical worlds inhabited by ravenous monsters and cruel villains.
Funnily enough, these sinister tales were precisely the ones that I gravitated towards back when I was a kid, and I was reminded of this while watching Netflix’s recently released I Am Frankelda, Mexico’s first ever feature-length stop-motion animation and one hell of an entertaining parable about the intersection between fiction and reality.
In honor of this special kind of horror-adjacent fairy tale, today I’d like to share this list recommending six Dark Fantasy films that horror fans might enjoy.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be defining Dark Fantasy as fantastical stories that don’t shy away from the more macabre elements that fuel classic fairy tales. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own grim favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
I’m fascinated by bizarre attempts at blockbuster filmmaking – especially when the resulting movies are somehow still fun despite their corporate-mandated origins. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is precisely one of these strangely compelling studio projects, as this surprisingly successful action-thriller boasts a lot of heart (and tongue-in-cheek humor) for a CGI-heavy creature feature.
Directed by Dead Snow’s Tommy Wirkola, Witch Hunters re-frames the classic fairy tale as an origin story for a duo of badass monster-slayers. Of course, it’s the flick’s anachronistic aesthetic and overall visual flair that make it stand out from other action-horror endeavors from around the same time.
5. The Wolf House (2018)
Made in the tradition of faux cursed films in the same vein as Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, the eerie backstory to 2018’s Chilean animated flick The Wolf House (La Casa Lobo in the original Spanish) already makes it a nightmarish experience before the flick even really begins.
After all, the movie is presented to us as a faux propaganda film produced by the leader of a death cult (heavily inspired by the real life Colonia Dignidad), with this hybrid animated feature using complex movie magic to simulate a single uninterrupted shot as it tells the story of a lazy young girl who runs away from an isolated colony and encounters a creepy old house in the woods.
4. The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Out of all the Monty Python alumni, Terry Gilliam has had the most interesting career outside of the original comedy group. From fascinating canceled projects (such as his scrapped adaptation of Watchmen) to dystopian parodies that feel more relevant by the minute (1985’s Brazil), even his “lesser” films are still intriguing in their own way.
2005’s The Brothers Grimm is one such project, with this peculiar movie attempting to combine the comedian-turned-filmmaker’s unique visual style with a more blockbuster-oriented plot reimagining the titular brothers as con-artists rather than mere writers. The end result isn’t exactly a masterpiece, but it’s still a legitimately fun ride with plenty of memorable monsters and wonderful performances by both the late, great Heath Ledger and Matt Damon.
3. Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010)
2010’s Dante’s Inferno game may have a reputation as something of an unapologetic God of War clone, but I’d argue that the now-obscure game was aesthetically unique enough to deserve a bigger fanbase. However, while the title remains trapped on the seventh console generation, its highly underrated anime adaptation is a lot easier to get a hold of!
Animated by 6 different studios in order to make the 9 circles of hell feel unique from each other, this may not be a completely faithful adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s poem, but it’s still one heck of a great (not to mention gory) time that I’d highly recommend to fans of Netflix’s take on Castlevania.
2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
My personal favorite entry in the Underworld franchise, Rise of the Lycans, is a highly ambitious prequel that actually works better if you haven’t had the story spoiled to you by the previous Underworld films.
While the rest of the series features plenty of urban fantasy elements as the movies combine machine guns and modern environments with gothic storytelling, Patrick Tatopoulos’ prequel fully embraces its fantastical origins and tells a classic tale about a doomed romance between a werewolf and a vampire amid a medieval uprising.
And the best part is that we get a lot more Michael Sheen as the fan-favorite Lucian.
1. Solomon Kane (2011)
One of my personal favorite movies on this list, MJ Basset’s criminally underseen adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s other iconic warrior is thoroughly steeped in horror ambience and features plenty of memorable monsters. However, it’s also a classic origin story for a swashbuckling hero that wouldn’t feel out of place in a tabletop RPG.
While I’ve already written about how the film deftly combines both horror and fantasy elements without breaking the bank, I’ll never pass up an opportunity to recommend the bizarre movie where James Purefoy expertly plays a puritan John Wick.
It’s just too bad that we never got the other films in this intended trilogy.
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