Verdict
Summary
Shot in Italy under Charles and Albert Band’s Empire Pictures banner, the 80-minute horror thriller Crawlspace is short and effective, thanks to stylish direction by David Schmoeller and a solid score by Pino Donaggio. The movie wouldn’t work as well as it does if Kinski wasn’t in it, and in any case, Crawlspace leaves a strong impression.
Plot:
A psycho landlord is addicted to killing his tenants.
Review:
A soft-spoken German landlord of a small apartment complex accepts only attractive female tenants, and he keeps one pitiful tongueless woman in a cage in the basement. The landlord is Karl Gunther (Klaus Kinski because no one else could have done this the way he did), and when he succumbs to the act (and art) of killing, he has a ritual he performs after the fact: He plays Russian roulette with himself. Because fate keeps deciding that Gunther should live to kill another day, he bides his time and accepts new tenants (although not much is said about where he keeps the bodies of the women he kills), spying on them in a crawlspace he’s made for himself in the apartment complex. This guy is next level creepy: He relishes the fact that his father was a Nazi who experimented on and euthanized countless Jews during the holocaust, and he watches Nazi Germany videos of Hitler youth rallies, dressing himself up in his father’s uniform, rambling on and on to the poor woman in the cage because he refused to end her suffering. Meanwhile, the women in the apartments come and go, including an aspiring singer with a great body (played by future erotic thriller mainstay Tane McClure), and his latest tenant who figures out that the landlord is a serial killer, leading to a stalk-and-chase sequence in the crawlspaces.
Shot in Italy under Charles and Albert Band’s Empire Pictures banner, the 80-minute horror thriller Crawlspace is short and effective, thanks to stylish direction by David Schmoeller and a solid score by Pino Donaggio. The movie wouldn’t work as well as it does if Kinski wasn’t in it, and according to Schmoeller Kinski was a terror to work with and wanted to “kill” him every day. He even made a short film called “Please Kill Mr. Kinski” about his time working with him, and it’s a pretty funny – and even a little touching – little short that describes in great detail (and even has the footage to prove it) how difficult it was to work with Kinski. In any case, Crawlspace leaves a strong impression.
Kino Lorber has just reissued Crawlspace on Blu-ray as part of their “Kino Cult” line (#26 on the spine). It is comparable in almost every way to the out of print Shout Factory Blu-ray, but this edition also adds a new commentary by a film historian, as well as porting over a commentary by Schmoeller, the aforementioned short film, and interview with the make-up artist, the trailer, and TV spots. There’s also a slipcover.
