User reviews

Science fiction films are a tough genre to get right. There are those that go full on space style and others that just take a more subtle approach. With the latest film from Australia Crawlspace it takes on the more strange and unknown in regards to strange experiments. Could this be one of those that delivers something special or is it just another in a long line of failed attempts to a difficult genre.

Crawlspace follows a group of elite soldiers sent to infiltrate and extract a science team from an underground military compound. When they encounter and unknown woman with no memory things go from bad to worse as they realize something more sinister is happening. The overall film of the movie plays like Aliens with the soldiers running through various tunnels hunting and being hunted around every corner. While there is a bit of a mystery to the story most of it plays pretty straight forward and pretty well. The acting is good for most of the film, with just a few moments here and there that are questionable. The visuals to the film give it a gritty and dark tone that really fits well with the overall story. The first half of the film takes you on a fun ride and delivers a really cool creature, but then the film shifts into a whole different direction. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but that first part was so cool and creative it would have made for a much better overall film. As it stands though the rest of the film still works well, but does manage to get a bit convoluted at times trying to twist and turn things for a more creative direction. This never makes the film hard to understand, just doesn't always make a lot of sense in why they are doing it.

Overall this is a pretty decent action science fiction film. There is plenty of action and complexity to the story to keep things entertaining, but given the addition to more of the cool creature they delivered early on this movie could have been so much better. If you are a fan of films like Aliens, then you may want to give Crawlspace a chance.

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")

A team of elite commandos are sent into a top secret military base with instructions to rescue the scientists who are apparently under attack from escaped prisoners. What they find is something very strange and different...

Australia has produced some high quality horror in recent times, this sadly - in spite of some sterling efforts - isn't one of them.

Justin Dix's (director/co-producer/co-writer) film is guilty of lifting from a whole bunch of other sci-fi/horror films to the point where the smart ideas in the narrative are practically squashed. Everything from Aliens and Scanners to Event Horizon are greased in to maintain a viable interest factor, a shame because the low budget is never an issue as the debut director shows a keen eye for atmosphere setting.

The facility that the characters find themselves in, as they fight for survival, is splendidly awash with a futuristic metallic sheen. While claustrophobia, as the title suggests, is one of the key character's of the piece. Acting is fine, no ham or cheese here, and in spite of the leanings from elsewhere, pic is never dull. It's not one for genre fans to base their evening in by the fire with, but it's just above average and shows Dix to have some potential behind the camera. 6/10

Crawlspace was an extremely frustrating film to sit through.

For starters I couldn't help feel that Australian director Justin Dix was trying to make an obviously American film. Why?

It blatantly rips off all manner of well known American science-fiction/action films that have gone before, and then relies on cheap tricks and lazy writing to shove the 'story' along,

While the camera work was high quality, and in camera special effects very impressive, the laugh out loud dialog negated these credible efforts time and time again.

The color by numbers plot is insulting to any movie goer, and seemed to follow a genre rules book instead of creating anything of substance.

I am assuming with a blonde leading actress (in tank top naturally) and enough blood and bullets, Justin Dix was hoping we wouldn't notice the lack of depth to the story.

Yes we do like blonde's, bullets, and blood, but the audience still has a brain.

Dix would be best to learn his craft deeply before attempting another film, Crawlspace is simply to shallow.

A special forces unit, sent to infiltrate Pine Gap Australia's top secret underground military compound, comes under attack from unknown forces.

Terrible effects, little use of science fiction in the plot, and just your average sort of experience makes this a typical lower budget action film. I am sorry, Australia, but you are going to have to try harder than this. We are already flooded with worthless films in America, and you cannot compete with the sheer number of throwaway pieces of trash we produce. (I am not proud of this.)

Most unfortunate, someone named this film "Crawlspace". While that may be a valid name for what takes place in the majority of this film, it is already the name of a better than average 1980s slasher film. If you are going to reuse a name, pick one that you can actually improve upon.

Saw this recently at a festival, well what can I say? Well for starters don't bother watching it. Boring, cliché and downright laughable in moments, I expected more from the people who brought us Wolf Creek. While some of the actors did their best with what can only be described as soap opera dialogue, others failed miserably. One highlight of the film was the special effects which were impressive but edited around to quickly to fully appreciate. More slush to come out of Australia, which is a shame because when they get it right they really hit the nail on the head. But Crawlspace hit's no nails and just bangs around meaninglessly. Two stars for try harder.

This is an Australian Sci-Fi/Horror movie that has elements of Alien, Species and Scanners. Set in the Australian equivalent to Area 51 known as Pine Gap it involves a team of elite soldiers being sent in to see why the compound has come under attack, and to save the scientists still there. This is a pretty good little horror in my opinion. Although the story has been done before it takes a few different sub-plots from other films and melds them together making it an original movie in some ways. I watched it and liked it, yes it wasn't brilliant, but I enjoyed it to the point that if there is a sequel I'd be happy to see it also. I give this movie a 7 out of 10.

It is amazing how low budget movie from OZ, with hardly known performers can deliver such entertainment. I am not going overboard and say it was an Oscar material but the movie kept me interested up to the end, I have read some of the reviews on IMDb and to be honest I was disappointed because other reviewers decided to give negative review just because they can. The acting was very convincing as for the story line; the movie makers could have elaborated on the main two chatterer past to make sense of some parts of the movie. This movie wont make it to the Oscar but by its own right is good entertainment; I know that because while watching some boring movies I tend to do something else or my mind wander away, this one kept me on my seat to the end.

So we watched Crawlspace this morning and while it's not as bad as some movies I have seen( like Amber Alert ) , it was no where near any good either. Thru most of it I felt like I was watching a cheap rip off of Aliens or that at the very least they had borrowed some of the set. Maybe it was just the soldiers with weapons, head gear, and proximity monitors crawling thru tunnels that made me feel like that. It may have been a better movie with a few face-huggers thrown in. There is also a small touch of Scanners towards the end. I had hopes it would have been at least interesting or , like Wolf Creek and Undead, made me afraid to ever go to Australia. But, unfortunately it just left me bored. I still Am Never going to Australia but that was a different movie.

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.

Far from being bad, but very far from being good, the idea is cool, but we didn't create that connection with the characters, empathy doesn't come, negative point, it's not so dark nor so shaky, positive point... Regular...

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.

The blatant copy and paste of other films is not new in Hollywood, but it is a surprise coming from down under Australia where the films are original if nothing else. I entered the cinema with high expectations, I love foreign films, Wolf Creek and Chopper are both brilliant examples of Australia's rawness and obvious talent pool.

So I was not only disappointed to find Crawlspace itself was very, very average, but that it Seemed to rip off all of its elements from other American films. It made me question, Is aiming to be a B-grade Michael Bay really a great goal to inspire to? Unfortunately it is a very common process to copy a successful movie and repeat it's formula over and over again, let's face it as long as people keep paying for mediocrity; then directors will keep pumping them out.

First time director Justin Dix then, I assume, knows formula and cliché sell well. But when a film comes across as being written quickly and without thought with only the dollar in mind. It shows. While it's understandable debut directors feel the need to play it safe, I'm hoping that emerging filmmakers from other countries strive higher than duplicating America's machine of mediocrity. It is not something we're proud of. It is truly a sad time when other countries are mimicking our crap.

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.

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!

January is often considered a "dump month" for films of all genres, and February isn't much better. And for horror movies especially, it just doesn't speak well for the movie studios' confidence. Very few people are looking for a good scare that time of year.

Maybe because they're already shivering from the cold, perhaps… or maybe it's just that there's no mental association with winter and virtually any form of thrilling excitement. It's more a time of either depression or snowy fun depending on how the weather affects you. Granted, there are occasional successes here, but for every Cloverfield there are six or seven Crawlspaces. Cliché and trite, another good looking film with no substance.

Crawlspace unfortunately offers nothing new to the world of film.

This is Science Fiction. But it's not Interstellar, 2001 or anything similar to those movies. No it's low budget. And considering the budget this had, I have to admit I was really impressed. The look of the movie is great (Blu Ray) and the acting is not bad either. There is not much story, but what you get is enough to hold your attention.

The movie does get violent though, so it's not for the squeamish. Twists can be foreseen, but it's the way everything is handled and I'm willing to stress that out again. Set design, lighting and everything else is pretty solid, which adds to a great look. The movie can be fun, if you are willing to accept a few slight missteps here and there. It's not a classic or anything, but it's way better than a lot of other movies that try and you can see the purity and passion they put into it

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 plot is quite simple but powerful. It is intelligent from the beginning trying to show you very little as the movie goes along. I was very surprised with acting in general, cinematography, art, editing and music. But perhaps the thing I liked the most is all references to Area 51, and conspiracy theories. From EVE to Genesis project, and quoting the Soviet Union paranormal experiments during the cold war which, now we know, were actually real, at least in their intent. I also enjoyed the several classic science fiction movies homages like James Cameron's "Aliens", Roger Donaldson's "Species", the Resident Evil games and even Steve Barker's "Outpost" if you want, and some others. Perhaps the main issue that generates dislike is the lack of dynamic and rhythmic editing during the 2nd part of the film. The climax to be precise. Nevertheless I think it is a good film for those hardcore science fiction fans that are always searching for new productions.

Science-Fiction flick with a horror taste. Up to an elite squad to go into a research building looking out for survivors and to rescue them but quickly they are into hell. When the commander recognises one of the to be survived ones as his death wife, things go wrong. It can't be possible that his death wife is still alive.

Experiments going on under the ground just at the last minutes to reveal what really was going on. The beginning reminded me of Alien, with the creepy spaces and the detector used to find the creatures. But luckily it wasn't a copycat of that legendary flick.

For the horror geeks it's not the story itself that will attract them but he effects used. Bodies exploding, being burned alive, exploding bodies. You will have it all here all done by some mystery going on.

Gore 1,5/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5

'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.

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Whenever we exchange films with each other, my movie pal sneaks in a so-called "send in the military cannon fodder" flick. These are horror/Sci-Fi movies dealing with random military men (and women) being sent into a top-secret and geographically remote government research facility or underground lab to eliminate some sort of experiment that went horribly wrong. As a matter of course, these people haven't got a clue what they will be battling against and, regardless of their intense training and superior skills, they get mercilessly ripped to pieces by something (usually an alien or a genetic experiment) much stronger and slimier than them.

You cannot imagine how many movies exist like this! And they continue to be made, since "Crawlspace" is a relatively recent effort from 2012 and it marks the debut of writer/director (but - most of all - special effects wizard) Justin Dix. "Crawlspace" has the advantage that it doesn't waste any time and has a strong beginning. There is immediately plenty of action when a troop of soldiers is being dumped into Pine Gap; - a facility hidden deep in the Australian desert. Their orders are to eliminate everything they encounter, but what they encounter is squad leader Romeo's missing and presumed dead wife! Is she a prisoner or a dangerous species? Or both? Or neither?

Dix lovingly imitates the pioneer and forefather of all "send in the military cannon fodder" movies, namely the almighty James Cameron's "Aliens", with copious amounts of narrow passageways, lurking monsters behind possibly every corner, loud & arrogant soldiers, and big artillery. It's thoroughly unoriginal but entertaining, until Justin Dix suddenly decides to also turn the film into a "Scanners" knockoff. Rather than with aliens of monstrous experiments, the danger in the Pine Gap facility is coming from psychic powers and ultra-strong minds. The plot twist is creative and unexpected, I admit, but also unconvincing and adding a whole lot of unnecessary confusion. By the third and final act, I was less than interested about who (if anyone...) would survive, and particularly the umpteenth "Scanners" homage with the exploding head was the cliché too many.