10 Scariest Movie Moments Of 2019

Crawl is Jaws with an alligator, and with a premise like that it’s amazing that it didn’t become the biggest film of the year. It did gross over $90 million from a $13 million budget, which is mighty impressive in its own right, but it was surprising how quickly this disappeared from public consciousness with such a stellar concept.

Like the Stephen Spielberg movie it so lovingly borrows from, most of Crawl’s fear is wrapped up in its suspenseful tone rather than too many specific moments. The silence after Quint’s Indianapolis story is much scarier than Quint’s death in Jaws, after all.

That said, its biggest moment is definitely the alligator attacks. They're the times which provided the most screams. It's just short of Jaws' ability to keep everything balanced on a knife edge, and so the alligator itself steals the show.

The apex predator is a terrifyingly brutal presence on screen, and the moments we see it emerge from the waters, thrashing and snapping its teeth, remind us just how powerful nature's beasts are. The claustrophobic suspense of Crawl makes it what it is, but only because we're so afraid of what lies beneath.