Crawlspace

source: Crawlspace

Some military unit is sent to a secret Australian/US military facility to kill everyone. On their kill list are a bunch of people in orange jumpsuits. We meet one of them, a pretty blonde girl. She's hiding in the vent ducts. The facility is on high alert, security teams are shooting anything in sight. The military unit runs into this girl and it turns out that the commander knows the girl--it's his wife who he thought was dead. But there's something else in the facility-- some giant ape that is chasing them. The unit together with the girl escape in a room where they find other people. They are researchers who know what goes on in the facility. One of them talks about hallucinations, another about biomechanics. The blonde has a scar on her scull, she demands to know what they did to her. She takes one of the researchers with her, the unit takes the boss and his assistant with the them. We learn that the blonde was indeed an experiment subject. She was military and volunteered for this program. Part of her brain was removed and replaced with part of another subject's brain. The goal of the project was to create psychics with the power to control other people's thoughts/ to implant hallucinations in their minds. At the same time other people became the guardian's of a person's mind, to protect it from psychics. All this because as the boss says, war is too important to be left in the hands of the military. We learn some more about the relationship of the commander with the blonde. And eventually we find out what happens with all these people. I wasn't expecting much from this movie. People confined in a "crawlspace" rarely make for an entertaining movie. Although in this case people spend a lot of time in vents and ducts. And people going mad and hallucinating also makes for terrible movies. Put those two together and it sounds like you'll end up with an awful movie. But I'm glad to say that it's not the case with this movie at all. Amber Clayton is absolutely gorgeous. There's a bit of horror and some gore. But what impressed me were the ideas, the twists and surprises. Nothing turns out as expected at all, and just as you think you've figured things out, they hit you with another unexpected thing. The script is rich and shows depth, far more than most sci-fi/action/horror movies. Crawlspace is a remarkable effort.

Another case of Could Have Been So Much Better, here, I'm afraid. Without a seemingly real beginning, the audience is thrown into the action not caring much for anyone or having any real concept of the environment, its trappings or the perils within, only to instead wonder what happened to the rest of the so-called "elite" unit that is suddenly just four bikers and a former spy. I'd like to think that 20 minutes from the beginning were sacrificed due to budget restraints meaning that the film was either spat out as is, or left forever incomplete, but others reviewing this may prefer to cuss the writer-director, who did show moments of a brighter future (if given more money). Yes, the film does feature a hot blonde who can actually act, and the former spy is a decent-enough character to maintain interest, so as it progresses, the film does prove to be somewhat rewarding, but that lack of seeing the elite unit go through the entrance of the compound to give us an idea of how cramped and isolated it really is, of seeing the rest of them wiped out to amp' up our fear for the few surviving on the lower, more dangerous levels, really takes a viewer out of the film before giving one much chance to get into it, and that is a shame.

Although this movie may have borrowed a bit heavily from a few better made sci-fi films, (and you can pick and choose as you see fit where hints of 'Aliens', 'Scanners', 'Resident Evil', and 'Doom' is sprinkled in throughout), this film still manages to thoroughly entertain throughout the length of the film and even provide a fairly decent, "Hmmm, I definitely wasn't expecting that" conclusion at the end of the film. Usually, if a sci-fi movie doesn't begin to deliver a believable plot, good character acting, and more importantly, strong, well thought out dialogue within the first 15-30 minutes of the film, I tend to find other things to do while watching many movies, i.e., multi-task, if I just don't turn off the movie entirely or watch something else altogether, but this movie did manage to keep my attention focused from beginning to end, . . . even though there were a couple of times where I had to pause, rewind, and playback just to make sure I didn't miss an important scene or clue in the movie, but overall a fairly good and entertaining movie!

'CRAWLSPACE': Two Stars (Out of Five) An ultra-low budget Australian sci-fi/horror flick about a team of special forces soldiers sent in to a secret military compound underground to rescue a group of scientists there. They find a woman with no memory of who she is or how she got there and something much deadlier that is unknown in origin. The film was directed and co-written (with Adam Patrick Foster and actor Eddie Baroo) by Justin Dix (a special effects and makeup artist making his feature film directing debut). Baroo stars in the film with Ditch Davey, Amber Clayton and Peta Sergeant (one of my favorite new actresses, to look at at least). The movie is one of those 'wannabe' sci-fi monster flicks that you can tell is heavily influenced by bigger and better films. It's pretty bad but given it's limited resources it's understandable. A special forces team is sent in to a secret military compound underground (known as Pine Gap) to find and rescue a team of scientists there. The compound was attacked by something but it's unknown what it's attackers were. The soldiers find a young woman in the compound named Eve (Clayton) who has no memory of who she is or what she's doing there. The leader of the military unit (Ditch Davey) thinks he knows who Eve is but the woman he thinks she is drowned some time ago (or at least he thinks she did). It's clear that the scientists were performing some kind of deadly experiments there and something very powerful has been unleashed. The movie is really just a much smaller-scale and much lower budget 'wannabe' 'ALIENS' film (one of my all time favorite movies). It has a team of soldiers in a small claustrophobic base and monsters (of some kind at least). It's of course not one-fifth the film that the classic and epic James Cameron masterpiece is but I can almost admire it's effort. I really just watched the film to see Peta Sergeant. She's not as hot here (playing a soldier named Wiki) as she was in the 2012 campy sci-fi flick 'IRON SKY' but she's still gorgeous. She's more of a tough action heroine in this film (she's no Ripley but she still has presence). Amber Clayton is really pretty to look at as well. As far as action and scares go the movie is extremely lacking but it's almost a 'well spent waste of time'. The women are beautiful and the atmosphere is nostalgic. A bad film indeed but not painfully bad. Watch our movie review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuVxCgCFIf8

I am huge fan of the Horror/Sci-Fi/Military genre that takes the viewer into the darker recesses of our imagination and pits science against the occult. Thus after coming across this film during a google search for the like, I wasted little time ordering a copy - it looked that good. The first turn off for me while viewing 'Crawlspace' was the commandos receiving the order to kill all prisoners of the facility on sight. What has Australia become? Some kind of neo down under police state with kangaroos and koalas? That sequence alone destroyed my suspension of disbelief and put me into a state of bad humor toward the picture. Moving on, the so called elite commandos seemed awkward moving with weapons in their hands ... almost as if the set had lacked a military adviser who had actually served in an armed force. None of the actors convinced me for even a moment that they were playing soldiers, rather than actors with prop guns. After the first monster appeared my spirits rose a bit, only to fall further again once the reveal was made as to what was really going on. On top of all that - and perhaps it is because I am not Australian - the acting just seemed flat and lifeless and lacking oomph or flow. Maybe that form of acting is popular 'down under' I cannot say. In short, I wanted to like the film. I am a huge fan of IFC. But the best part of the movie hands down was Peta Sergeant's screen time - but not her acting. She is quite easy on the eyes. I will rate the film a three for effort. So if you are a fan of the Mil/Sci-fi/horror genre who is dying for his next fix, you can do much better than 'Crawlspace' - much better.

I saw this film at the Brussels fantastic film festival 2013 (BIFFF), in a very very late nightly session starting 1 AM. Myself and the rest of the audience was very well awake, however. Something very sinister was going to be shown, having to do with a clandestine research project. We learned all this from the synopsis on the festival website. It also refers to former experience of this director when cooperating in famous productions. We learned also that he formed an "incredible" team of film makers around him to create this Crawlspace. From the very start the tone is set when we see the briefing of a soldier team in an airplane on their way to the research facility in question. Photo's of "prisoners" are shown, with the explicit instruction to shoot them on sight. Implicit suggestion is that the prisoners are the cause that the facility lost contact with the outside world (what else could it be??). I know it is not customary to challenge military orders within a briefing, but this is too easy, too black&white and thus not very believable. The first scene within the facility follows a woman with a brace band showing Eve as her name (with orange pants, hence a "prisoner"). It is made very obvious that she does not recognize that name as her own. She succeeds very well in finding her way in the narrow "facilities" spaces while evading encounters with unknown adversaries (on whose side, we can only guess). The soldiers are divided in three teams when entering the facility. They carry electronic gadgets with plans of the building, and a lot of weaponry including hand grenades (not very appropriate in that environment, but I'm no expert). What seems to be a well coordinated military operation, soon turns into disorder when unexpected things start happening. When one of the teams meet Eve, their leader Romeo suddenly remembers her as his former wife, who was assumed drowned. We viewers are at a loss, as are his colleagues, since Eve's photo was shown during the briefing where he did not recognize her face. This is the first hint that something very peculiar is going on. The story line deteriorates soon after this, when impossible things start happening (like an over-sized gorilla suddenly turning up), combined with testosterone driven actions by the military without a proper plan how these actions can advance their mission. Especially when they encounter some scientists, it seems that who is the fastest in pointing a gun is automatically right and the pointees are automatically wrong. And a lot of yelling, of course, all of that leading us nowhere. I don't think it has any use to condense the story further, since logic is lost from this moment on and a lot of Action (with capital A, no sex) takes over. Many things are going on in subsequent scenes, some of them clarifying the underlying plot but others sowing doubts about any consistent plot. Given all that, I have no firm opinion on casting and acting. All in all, I may assume I was expecting too much, given the synopsis on the festival website. I may stand alone in my negative experience, however, because of some applause coming from the rest of the audience when the credits appeared. Anyway, whatever its faults, it was not a boring experience. Something was happening all the time, thereby giving us no reason to consult our watches. So it may be considered entertainment without pretenses. But the missed chances with the plot that deserved much better treatment, together with a lot of unnecessary illogicalities, make this film into something not suitable for the true SciFi fan.

The premise of Pine Gap suddenly being out of communication together with a group of special elite tactical soldiers to investigate and rescue the resident scientists -sounds great. With the some-what acceptable production and stages, it achieves the claustrophobic environment. Unfortunately what you actually get is a bunch of redneck amateur hippie yobbos masquerading as the elite forces!!! They appear unprofessional as if they have just stepped out from the pub, they grunt and can't put together any intelligent dialogue. Elite force?? Not sure why they would be classed as that. Pine Gap is a US military facility but where are the US special ops??? No way would the US allow a bunch of hillbillies to infiltrate their top-secret spy base. That aside, the movie is excruciatingly slow, the acting is atrocious and the script poorly written. This movie is a complete waste of any viewer's time and is best to be avoided.

In 1966 the Australian and U.S. Governments established Pine Gap, a top secret research facility in the remote Australian outback. Fifteen hours ago all contact with the facility was lost, cause unknown. Then there are messages telling that the prisoners have escaped. Three helicopters with a group of elite soldiers are sent to rescue the scientists and eliminate the dangerous prisoners. Commander Romeo (Ditch Davey) leads the team formed by Fourpack (Eddie Baroo), Wiki (Peta Sergeant) and Kid (Fletcher Humphrys) that is mysteriously attacked by strange creatures in the underground. When Romeo meets the amnesic prisoner Eve (Amber Clayton), he protects her compromising their mission. When his team questions who Eve is, Romeo tells that she is his wife that died years ago in Paris. When they find the scientists Darious Caesar (Nicholas Belt), Emily (Ngaire Dawn Fair) and Matthews (Samuel Johnson), they learn that the scientists are developing powerful psychic soldiers in the facility. Who is Eve? Will the soldiers succeed in their assignment? "Crawlspace" is a claustrophobic movie with a promising idea, good acting but poor beginning and conclusion. The story begins without any development, with a group of soldiers breaking in a facility in the outback of Australia. The viewer does not know whether the story happens in the present, past or future; how is the government of this society; and who are the prisoners (criminals, political). The action is reasonable and when Eve opens the body bag and is surprised with her discovery, the viewer never knows who was there (might be the alien in her recollection, but it is not clear). What Romeo did to his wife and why is also confused and not clear. Last but not the least, the conclusion is totally disappointing. My vote is five. Title (Brazil): "Fortaleza Secreta" ("Secret Fortress")

IMDb truly baffles me sometimes. The score for Crawlspace stands at 4.8 at the time of writing which is ridiculously low for such a competent, not to mention fun, piece of film making. Premise - a military team is sent in to an underground complex ("Australia's version of Area 51" one character notes) with the mission of eliminating a group of escaped prisoners and saving the scientists. Of course it all goes wrong, and that's about all you need to know. No, actually what you need to know is that this hangs together way better than 90% of the other Aliens derived plots out there. The similarities to Aliens are evident at every turn, from the way the military team interacts with one another (much like James Cameron's colonial marines), to the motion trackers and a lead protagonist who bears more than an uncanny resemblance to Michael Biehn. Sure it rips of Aliens, but it rips it off well and if like me you've been waiting for over 25 years for a film that had that Aliens vibe going for it then you will love this. There's another layer to Crawlspace too though - a pretty intriguing psychological mystery plot woven through that hides just enough answers to keep your interest. But, like all good old school movies, it doesn't try to get too clever and the end is obvious but deeply entertaining including a couple of kiss-off lines that I said right along with the actors and then grinned my head off. I dunno, I suppose kids these days want something different from movies than we did in my generation. When I go into a sci fi horror movie about soldiers vs underground monsters, all I really want is some gore, some action, and some entertainment and Crawlspace delivered on all accounts. 4.8 - no way. This is a solid 6. But I'm giving it an 8 just to counterbalance some of the insanity.