Claw

I give it 4 stars for the good CGI and the good acting of the girl. The acting of all the other characters was really bad. The plot is non-existent. I mean, the preview tells you literally what it is about: two people get chased around by a raptor for an hour and half. No backstory, no drama, no complexity, and the attempts at humor were pretty bad. Sorry to the people who made it, as I know you put your heart into it, but I just did not find it to be a good movie (the girl's good acting aside).

A note about my rating system: because I rate on a highly subjective, relativistic scale, virtually any movie can achieve a 10/10 rating with me. After all, nothing prevents even the very cheapest of movies from telling a great story. A limited budget and amateur actors needn't cripple a movie in the hands of enthusiastic and devoted makers. And so on.

Just as uninspired workmanship can flush a giant budget down the toilet, so can talent and enthusiasm carry the day for the poverty-stricken. You'd be surprised how your old aunt Mabel and best pal Cooter can reach for the stars on their Walmart lunch break last Tuesday. A 10/10 is within the grasp of any movie that cares enough to rise above itself and reach for it.

And, sadly, it's precisely because of this truth that CLAW was so disappointing. For about 90% of the movie, CLAW was sailing along, high and proud, and was well on its way to getting at least a 9/10 and had the potential of even a top 10/10.

And then CLAW literally self-destructed right at the finish line. The writer/director (mostly the same person) somehow lost control or simply went insane and CLAW transmogrified back into the moldy pumpkin from whence it came. Somehow, watching the movie, which had been doing so well, suddenly sprout warts out of nowhere was more disturbing than if it had simply been garbage all along.

I can't be certain, of course, but the impression that I got was that the writer/director couldn't figure out how to end the movie. And so we got a cheesy ending feint of a dream sequence followed by an even worse dream-echo sequence where a full-grown Tyrannosaurus rex just shows up out of nowhere and peeks in through the window. Rawr.

For most of the movie, CLAW had a sort of original TREMORS buddy/monster movie kind of vibe going for it. Structurally, it was almost identical to TREMORS where we have an unjustifiably-present monster effectively just thrown on stage (a premise you're just supposed to accept out of goodwill, apparently) and then the bulk of the movie is our unlikely duo attempting to come to terms and survive in a remote location, with no hope of help, while creatively fending off this monster that wants to eat them.

In CLAW, the two leads did a surprisingly high quality acting job and were very engaging/believable. The simple setting, premise and chase-scene sensibilities in combination with engaging and believable leads was working an excellent chemistry, and then, without warning, the whole thing just took a turn for the stupid.

What a shame.

The title CLAW is a synecdoche (a part which represents a whole, just as in JAWS (1975) the title actually refers to a shark). It refers to a prehistoric monster that was genetically re-engineered by a renegade scientist and ends up, for much of the duration of the movie, chasing a pair of comedians who made an involuntary stop at a desert ghost town.

This is brainless but fun entertainment for the right crowd. It takes neither science nor logic nor itself seriously, but that is okay because it is not meant to be a dissertation (a propos dissertation: the monster is referred to as a "raptor", short for "velociraptor", but that is actually a misidentification: none other than Michael Crichton, the author of JURASSIC PARK (1993), started a trend of giving this dinosaur which is closest to the ferocious Deinonychus the name of a Turkey-sized dinosaur, probably because it sounded cooler. Incidentally, whereas "velociraptor" means "swift robber", Deinonychus means "terrible claw"! Oh well).

I am part of the right audience because I like both movies in which people are chased by a monster (some comps I recently saw and liked: HOOKED UP (2013), where two people are chased by a ghost and DASHCAM (2021), where two people are chased by a flying zombie) and I like movies which have a ghost town as a background setting (a recent example: A TOWN FULL OF GHOSTS (2022)).

I am a very analytic person (see writing sample above) but it is good to every once a while let go and just let a silly movie be, as long as it hits the right entertainment notes, and this one does for me, mostly.

The CGI and acting are not top notch but adequate and the progression of events is entertaining, though I would have wished for a little faster pace. The music makes this film stand out from comparable low budget fare: the score is orchestral and gives the movie a little bit of a retro feel.

The ending overdoes the silliness a bit, and the 14-minute slo-mo end credits for this 80 minute movie must be some sort of an inside joke, but overall, it was not bad for a little over an hour entertainment. That is, if you like a movie that is just showing some people being chased by a monster against an unusual setting.

Based on the actual quality of the movie and the writing, probably only 3 or 4 stars. Based on how much I enjoyed myself, 10 stars. So, split the difference.

I've watched movies with much higher production that took themselves far too seriously, and thus were worse than Claw. This movie was a bunch of people having fun, with a silly little story and some good humor.

Definitely not for everyone. More of a cult comedy thing, where you shouldn't take any of it serious and should just sit back and not think for an hour.

As a movie it's bad, it lacks many things but you can't deny that it's entertaining, especially when you have nothing to do... the secret is to watch it without prior judgement, more than one laugh will make you feel, even in the most "terrifying" scene.

I repeat, it is not a masterpiece, but it is entertaining if you want to see something nice. One of the advantages of the movie "Claw" is that it only lasts 1 hour and 8 minutes (Not counting Credits).

Totally recommended for those who like "Low Cost" movies or B movies and the most critical, open your mind to low budget movies, because at some point we could appear in them as extras xd.