After two rather disappointing entries in their Into the Dark series, Hulu and Blumhouse redeemed themselves with the latest installment of holiday horror; a St. Patrick’s Day themed alien invasion film titled “Crawlers”.

For anyone who’s tired of only watching the Leprechaun films on Saint Patrick’s Day, here’s a fun sci-fi horror alternative1

Not Your Typical Bar Crawl
The usual drunken March 17^th festivities are well under way as a group of friends try to put their baggage and tensions with each other aside.

Having gone through a recent trauma, Misty feels that her friend Chloe hasn’t been very supportive, while Chloe feels that Misty has been a downer, and seeks to replace her with a new friend, Yuejin.

They also meet up with a drug dealer friend, Shauna (who narrates as well). She’s a bit of a conspiracy theorist and doesn’t really seem to fit in with them, but she’s more so there to make sales than friends.

Shauna ends up being the most interesting character, but her constant narration interruptions feel more like tacky distractions than witty commentary (which the film was aiming for).

But that aside, it is fun to see her conspiracies validated, as a real alien invasion seems to be taking place. The creatures take the blood of a person, and then are able to shape shift into them.

Some have been quick to compare “Crawlers” to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but it honestly has more in common with John Carpenter’s The Thing. And what begins as a typical college drama soap opera, turns into a fight to save humanity.

Not Sure What It Wanted to Be
In a strange way, it feels like “Crawlers” either went too far, or didn’t go nearly far enough. It seems like it was going for campy sci-fi horror, but took itself just seriously enough to miss out on being another Evil Dead, or something of the sort.

Shauna and her mom are fun characters, and honestly, the film probably should have focused much more on them, rather than all the college drama, but they were also probably aiming for a younger audience.

All that said, it’s still an enjoyable 80 minutes, that at least remembers to be a horror film early on (unlike “Midnight Kiss” or “My Valentine”). Into the Dark can be very or hit or miss, and “Crawlers” certainly leans more towards being a hit.

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