Crawlspace

Many a time the problem with a movie (and 'horror' movies in particular) is that you don't care about the characters. As 'Cabin in the Woods' pointed out, the 'stars' of such films are little more than: 'Generic Blonde A,' the 'Jock, the Slut' and 'the Best Friend.' So, for a start, they're not particularly entertaining and, secondly, you don't really care about them when they meet their grisly end.

However, in 'The Attic,' the characters are actually quite well-written. The main cast are all a family, who have just moved into a nice suburban house in America. And, they're actually quite likable. They're likable, largely because they behave like a real family, i.e. they bicker and get at each other, plus no one has been written as a deliberate 'comic element.' So, in a cheap B-movie, I found myself actually wanting to watch more and really enjoying the film. Unfortunately, although the writers can definitely do 'characters' and dialogue, they're not too good at story or plausibility.

The family move into their new home, only to discover that the previous occupant is still living in the attic (and he doesn't take too kindly to newcomers in 'his' house). And that's where the story falls down. You may guess that a certain amount of murders follow and no one seems to notice. People just disappear from the property and no one really bothers to look into it. Plus the badguy himself is pretty lame and not particularly threatening.

The death-scenes are at least inventive on the low budget and some of the kills are clever (if possibly a little unrealistic). And special mention to the youngest member of the family. He's not in it that much, so he doesn't have a lot to do, but his 'one-liners' are quite amusing.

All in all, I really enjoyed the dialogue and family interaction. It was just the plot and lack of realism that spoiled it. I'd quite like to see the same family in a different (horror) situation, as they were definitely the film's high point.

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Moving into a new house, a family's unusual encounters within the house are soon discovered to be the disgruntled former owner looking for revenge against the occupants and must try to survive his vicious attacks.

This was a huge disappointment and really didn't have a whole lot here that's really enjoyable. The main thing hurting this movie is the fact that the main villain here is one of the weakest and lamest villains in horror-film history. The central premise of why he's haunting the family, being so grief-stricken over losing his house that he moves into the attic and lives there undetected for as long as he does here makes for a pretty lazy story, especially with the multitude of murders committed on the property before anyone realizes he's there. Then comes the fact that the film tries to make him some sympathetic hero with the reasoning for the family's loss of the house and what they did to his psyche is pure fluff and has no regard in the rest of the story when the seemingly sympathetic hero embarks on such a rampage as what occurs here when he finally starts dishing out the violence. Even before he starts off, the fact that the majority of the film is spent on areas outside the stalking and killing that really drags this one down, as there's so much going on with him observing the family but not actually doing anything that there's such a long time in this before it actually starts getting interesting. Simply watching them in the attic has a creepy feel at first but does little to hold the viewer's attention as it goes along since that's the only tactic employed here throughout the whole first hour, and the fact that he undertakes this while they have no idea of how long he's been doing things around them is so lazy and lame that it makes them look all the stupider for failing to realize what's going on. Even the few times it seems like he should be found out are written off like they're nothing, and that makes even less sense in keeping the ruse alive. All told, this makes the main villain uniformly weak and uninteresting in such a boring film. The only thing that really holds up here is the final half, which has some rather fun confrontations and stalking to go along with some pretty nasty and bloody kills, but otherwise there's little to like here.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language, Brief Nudity, a mild sex scene and children-in-danger.

This film is your standard formula horror film but in a good way - it delivers. Featuring great performances mainly from Steven Weber it also boasts some really creative death scenes. People who are fans of home invasion horror films should really appreciate the film. Surprised this isn't rated a lot higher. It's highly entertaining. Passed my expectations for it. Highly recommended.

An Uncredited Remake of "Hider in the House" (1989) Starring Gary Busey, and with the Same Title of the Klaus Kinski Horror from 1986, this is a By the Book Slasher/Home Invasion Horror Throwback with Genre Trope Kills that will Seem Familiar.

A Good Deal of Emphasis is Placed on the Family Unit with Many Scenes of Brother-Sister Banter and Bonding and Parent-Child Relationships and Responsibilities. It is This Focus that Gives the B-Movie a Bit of Gravity but Not Enough to Make this Rise Above Average at Best.

It is Formula for Most of its Short Running Time and Might be Worth a Watch for Horror Completists and B-Movie Slummers, but Others can Skip this Styleless Movie Without Missing Anything New.

A mentally disturbed man hides in the attic of his former home to take revenge on the bank employee who forced the foreclosure of the property in order to buy it for his own family.

Crawlspace is not a remake of the 1986 Klaus Kinski film of the same name. It's much more akin to the 1989 Gary Busey thriller Hider in the House, in which a family are oblivious to the fact that a stranger is living unseen in their home (and, to some extent, another Busey film, A Crack in the Floor). So it's not exactly original.

Crawlspace's biggest problem, however, is not the lack of fresh ideas - the basic concept is strong enough to withstand reinvention (see also Freehold from 2017) - but rather its badly written script, poor acting, shoddy editing and weak direction. Two sex scenes and some reasonably bloody deaths aside, the whole thing looks and feels like a cheap made-for-TV movie, with zero style and implausible plot developments.

There are two gory moments that hint at what could have been had writer/director Josh Stolberg just gone all out with the outrageousness: the death of hot babysitter Mae (Nikki Moore), who has her neck gashed by a car window, and a murder by curling tongs, which are rammed through the victim's head. Unfortunately, the rest of the killings are less effective: the death by vaccum cleaner is lame, the garbage disposal scene doesn't deliver the graphic splatter, and the murder of the pest exterminator is bloodless.

Crawlspace is too dumb to work as a genuinely scary film, so why not just dial up the craziness and have fun with it?