For writer and director Christian Everhard, “The Crawling” began as a late-night thought experiment. While on vacation with a girlfriend at an isolated cabin, he woke up in the middle of the night, his mind racing. As a horror fan, he started thinking about the scariest worst-case scenario. Could a dangerous local break into the house? Could an animal scurry in?
And then he saw a bright flash of light he couldn’t account for.
“The Crawling” is, indeed, about a married couple, Mike (Will Brittain, “Kong: Skull Island”) and Emma (Katherine Hughes, “Tell Me Lies”), on vacation in a remote house. One night, Mike is woken up not only by bright lights but also an alien being. Adding to his distress is the fact that Emma thinks he dreamed up the encounter. Things escalate from there, with plenty of twists, turns and extraterrestrial madness.
But what elevates “The Crawling” is not just alien scares and creature effects — although there are plenty of those, courtesy of Onyx Forge’s Steve Wang & Cleve Gunderman. As “Obsession” launched dozens of think pieces about modern dating, consent and control, “The Crawling” conjures plenty of discomfort from the increasingly fraught relationship between Mike and Emma, which might cut close to real life for many in the audience.
Everhard’s first bold choice was centering the film on a character that people might not have empathy for, as Mike’s an alpha police officer on suspension for assaulting a suspect. In a conversation I had with the director following the Oct. 23 world premiere of the film at the Provo, Utah, festival FilmQuest, he explained why Mike was the perfect protagonist, flaws and all.
“Once I figured out what was going to happen to this guy, I started to think, ‘Who would be the one that this would shatter the most?’” Everhard said. “I thought about the guy who defines himself by his manliness and masculinity — not only in his personal life, but also in his work. That started to open the door, and the more I explored it, the more I realized there was an opportunity to peel back the layers of not just gender and identity, but I became transfixed with this idea of, ‘What if I started the film with this guy that the audience probably won’t like?’ He’s presenting as an asshole. I was really interested in trying to see if I could take the audience from not liking this guy to starting to understand him and then start to actually care about him once the ending happens.”
Mike finds the carefully guarded boundaries of his life quickly eroded beyond his control, many of them even before his close encounter. The couple is on this vacation because they’re trying to get pregnant, and Mike feels everyone is putting the blame for the slow process on him. But what does it say about him if he’s not able to perform or get his wife pregnant as an alpha male should? Meanwhile, Emma doesn’t see the strange things at night that he does … Is he losing his mind? Or, given that she’s a therapist, is she dismissing his reality in order to figure out subtext? As things escalate, their relationship gets squeezed tighter and tighter, and some of the movie’s truest horror is how quickly a relationship can unravel — even if you’re convinced the other person is “the one.”
The film’s heavy lifting would fall apart without the complex performances from its leads. Brittain has the flashier role, a once-dominant male eventually stripped to his core, ceding any control. Pair that emotional heft with some truly gnarly body horror, and it could be a breakout part for the talented actor. Hughes is doing some fascinating work in a diametrically opposite role, one that initially signals a manic pixie put-upon wife, but quickly blooms into darker corners as her desires and secrets are revealed.
“The Crawling” seared itself into my brain and, after a good sleep, it wasn’t just the festival fever that sometimes inspires frenzied praise as a screening lets out. With any luck, horror fans will be able to see this on a big screen and wrap their heads around some of the film’s big questions — many of which I couldn’t touch on here, as not to spoil — and also be thrilled by the alien mayhem.
Watch a teaser trailer for “The Crawling” below.
“The Crawling” is being represented for sales by producer Nick Donadio.