Creepy Crawly - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Creepy Crawly



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



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Movie
Usually Thailand film making is known for gritty crime thrillers, or raw action films that feature Muay Thai fighters like Tony Jaa and involve some absolutely INSANE stunts that would make even the 1980s and 1990s Hong Kong film makers start asking who is going to insure them. Usually you don’t see horror films or other dramas come out of the country (though they do exist. It’s just we in the U.S. don’t really see them) so it’s fascinating to see one come out that doesn’t involve vampires, werewolves, or horrific maulings by someone with a butcher knife. Instead we get creepy, crawly (hey! There’s the title!) bugs. Not just any bugs, but thousand legged centipedes that spur on the skin crawling through of something wriggling around in your body.

Ironically this is the 2nd Well Go USA title in the last week or so that features Covid 19 playing a large part of the story (Gangnam Zombie was the other one last week), with everyone running around with paper masks and worrying about quarantining each other from everybody. Anyway, the film starts out with your typical “hot girl alone in the woods filming something, only to scream at a monster off screen who appears to munch on her”. Seguing into a hotel in the city we’re introduced to a small number of guests who are going about their daily routines until the “new girl” suddenly starts attacking people and leaving a melted corpse in the basement for our intrepid youngster to find.

Yeah, it’s not hard to see what’s going on here. A youtube video inside the film lets us into a legend about a gigantic mythical centipede that takes over a human’s body, sucking the blood out of it so that it can multiple and grow ad nausea. Which pretty much clues you into the fact that our “new girl” just so happens to be the latest host for the beast we saw in the woods. As the creature beings to hide among the staff and sends out thousands of little minion centipedes the guests scramble to get out, only to find out that the sleazy owner of the hotel has locked all the doors so that he can contain whatever is happening.

Creepy Crawly is not a bad movie really. I was expecting WAY worse, especially since Thailand isn’t known for their dramatic horror movies. Luckily the powers that be decided to not go full on cheesy and show the monster everywhere, but instead uses jump scares and images of creepy centipedes scuttling around to build tension, then keep the main giant boss bug off screen most of the time so that they didn’t have to show just how limited their budget really was. It sort of mimics elements of The Thing with characters having to look over their back constantly wondering what innocent person they know might be harboring the monster, but also more traditional monster movie tropes as well. Usually in the form of people getting impaled and sliced by the big bad boss bug in a dark room.

Honestly, while it had some good points, Creepy Crawly is also pretty disjointed and weak as well. Character development is nonexistant for the most part, only for the film to pad other sections of the movie with backstory on dysfunctional family drama and the like that NO ONE cares about. The mythology of the creature had some promise, but once more they dropped the ball on that and left so many threads hanging there. Not to mention why the monster is sooooooo obsessed with the protagonist “Fame”. All in all, it’s a decent little creature feature, but one that definitely has its ups and downs.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

Creepy Crawly’s 2.39:1 AVC encode is quite nice for the most part, with a slightly muted color palate and the typical cheap effects from a low budget nation. Fine details maintain a strong and healthy present ranging from blood effects on the face, as well as the “boss” effects near the end. I did notice some banding in darker shots (which is typical of Well Go USA titles) but the most egregious example of banding will be that opening shot in the woods where everything bands for just a few seconds in the dark. Otherwise, this is a reasonable looking film that has good details, decent blacks, and overall great clarity in daylight shots.









Audio:

Presented only in the original Thai, we have the traditional 5.1 DTS-HD MA track with the accompanying 2.0 downmix in Dolby Digital 2.0 to enjoy. The mix springs into action with a skittering mix of bug noises, clattering feet, and a creepy jump scare that pretty much sets the bar for the rest of the film. The track settles down for a solid mix of screams and whispering dialog, but the mix still fills out nicely with the background clattering of centipede in air ducts and the slamming bass drops of a jump scare. (fun fact, not everyone speaks Thai in the film. There’s some Korean and English vocals mixed in as well). Nothing overly wild, but still a solid 5.1 legacy mix.












Extras:

• Well Go USA Previews
• Trailer

Final Score:
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Creepy Crawly (which was originally title The One Hundred overseas) is a moderately fun Thai horror film that ended up being way better than expected. Sure, this is not going to rival some of the stuff from South Korea in terms of quality, but it is light years better than the stupidly raw and gritty Muay Thai action films that Thailand is really known for anyways. Being that this is October, it fits right in with the motif of monster movies that are a staple of Halloween season, and I see no reason why this couldn’t rotate in at least as a rental.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Chanya McClory, Mike Angelo, Benjamin Joseph Verney, Kulteera Yordchang
Directed by: Chalit Krileadmongkon, Pakphum Wongjinda
Written by: Pakphum Wongjinda, Chalit Krileadmongkon
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: Thai: DTS-HD MA 5.1, Thai DD 2.0
Subtitles: English
Studio: Well Go USA
Rated: NR
Runtime: 91 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: October 3rd, 2023

Recommendation: Decent Rental