La muerte espía en las sombras

Crazy old landlord, and former Nazi, preys upon the lady tenants of his building via a system of passages.

Being directed by David Schmoeller (maker of 1979's excellent Tourist Trap) I expected a better-than-average horror film and was sadly disappointed. While Crawlspace has its moments of creepiness, it doesn't possess hardly any of the tension or suspense that one would hope for. It basically becomes a run of mill killer-psycho movie with little imagination.

However, the film is not a complete waste. Klaus Kinski does make for a decent villain, who is one very sick and twisted character. Kinski fans will likely enjoy this movie more than most viewers.

Over all, an OK effort that could have been much better.

** out of ****

Hey I love this one. I've always been a Klaus Kinski fan and he's so particularly demented and soft-spoken from the get-go in this one, that he can't possibly be the good guy. No one with a German accent is.

He plays the Dr. Karl Gunther, son of a Nazi war criminal, who's escaped to America from Argentina and becomes an apartment manager. It also turns out that many of his tenants mysteriously disappear while the building is under his supervision.

It seems the 'good' Doctor can't stop killing them and he sets up his murders by crawling around in the building's heater ducts and observing his victims before making his move. There's also a woman he holds captive in an animal cage up in the attic, who he keeps as company after he's cut out her tongue.

Then innocent Lori Bancroft (Talia Balsam) moves in and Kinski takes a lot of interest in her before going on one final murder spree towards the end.

Also notable for being filmed on the same apartment building set as TROLL (1986), with all the action taking place indoors and in the heater ducts. Don't look for a wide variety of locations here. It's a small film.

Like I said, I enjoyed it and would recommend it mainly for Kinski's performance, but don't expect any extras on the MGM DVD because they're aren't any.

7 out of 10

This movie is very much of its time and is probably more something to watch with a few friends and a running commentary. Otherwise while it has some fun quirks to it, there isn't much that really makes sense or is compelling.

What it has going for it is some originality. The way it is told from mostly the killers perspective as he views others and we get a view into his life with his journals is a great idea, however it is underdeveloped and doesn't really pay off in the end.

Overall there is some fun to be had here and with better writing this could have been something very interesting. As it is, it is some very schlocky 80s camp and that's not too bad if that's all you are looking for.

I saw this one back to back with "Cobra Verde" and, surprisingly, actually liked it better. It's an inexpensive little serial killer film, rather low on violence on the contemporary "Saw" scale, but with excellent camera-work and music (composer Pino Donaggio worked with Brian de Palma and Dario Argento, and cinematographer Sergio Salvati shot some of Lucio Fulci's best movies). Kinski gives a very beautiful performance here: He's in almost every scene, and his characterization of the evil nazi/doctor/landlord is restrained, faceted and balanced, meandering between the light-hearted and ugly. I didn't know that his acting in the mid-eighties still had such quality. If you get a chance, watch director David Schmoeller's (he wrote all the Puppet Master movies and directed the first one) hilarious short movie about his collaboration with Kinski, aptly titled "Please kill Mr. Kinski" (1999). Making the movie must have been hell for the poor guy, but the result is quite rewarding.

From director David Schmoeller, who gave us the enjoyably offbeat slasher Tourist Trap, Crawlspace is an equally bizarre horror starring the inimitable Klaus Kinski as Karl Gunther, a mentally unhinged landlord who has developed an addiction to killing, satisfying his urges by luring his tenants into his deadly, booby trapped apartment. When he's not in a murdering mood, Gunther can be found crawling through the air ducts of his building to spy on the women who live there, writing about killing in his diary, playing Russian roulette, or wearing Nazi regalia while watching footage of Hitler (Gunther's father was a Nazi surgeon).

For an '80s horror film, Crawlspace is fairly light on the gore and scares, but with its star in full on demented mode, the film cannot fail to entertain: whether it be carefully preparing a chair with a spring-loaded spike in the seat (nasty!), crushing rats with his bare hands, travelling at speed through the air ducts on a wheeled toboggan, smearing his face with make-up, or simply chatting to the tongue-less woman that he keeps caged in his room, Kinski's crazed performance is a delight to behold.

6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.