Crawl

Claustrophobic heat and brooding terror are effectively evoked in this homage to film noir, Alfred Hitchcock and the Coen brothers. In a rural Australian town, a seedy bar owner (Paul Holmes) hires a Croatian hitman (George Shevtsov) to murder a local garage owner after a business deal goes bad, but the simple plan backfires and an innocent waitress is taken hostage in the confusion. It's a slow-burning exercise in tightly wound tension, crafted with a dark nuance and graceful skill, atmospheric lighting and fluid camerawork. The employment of long periods of silence also ramps up the suspense in this modest thriller as it builds towards a nail-biting climax. While it virtually devolves into a two-hander, writer/director Paul China could not have been better served by leads Shevtsov and Georgina Haig, the latter playing a character called Marilyn Burns in a nod to the heroine of the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre.