Crawlspace

It's been awhile since I've seen this one, but I remember what it was about. A different young man is taunted by the so-called "normal" kids until he's finally driven to kill violently. This movie may be almost 30 years old, but (unfortunately) its message is still timely. Time to dust this one off and show it again. Good to watch as a family with discussion afterwards.

The movie was partly filmed in my father's old grocery store in 1972 in East Norwalk, CT. I was only 13 years old and all I remember was eating the many different kinds of cereals that were used for props in my father's store. I know that it took about 1.5 to 2 days to complete the shooting of the store scene. I was told that part of the movie was also shot in Westport or Weston, CT. There was also another movie shot in my father's store about a year later, but I am not sure what then name of it was. I would be interested in purchasing a DVD of this movie if I could find one. I have seen the movie when I was 13 year old, but I only remember the store scene and the scene were the boy lived in the crawlspace of a house.

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed by John Newland; Produced by Robert Berger; Executive Producer: Herbert Brodkin, for Titus Productions. Telecast by CBS-TV. Screenplay by Ernest Kinoy, from Herbert Lieberman's novel; Photography by Urs Furrer; Edited by Carl Lerner; Music by Jerry Goldsmith. Starring: Arthur Kennedy, Teresa Wright, Tom Happer and Eugene Roche.

Very fine contemporary horror telefilm which handles a limited-space abstract situation (a boy gone primitive holed up inside a protective childless couple's house) with finesse. Unfortunately watered-down to fit broadcast television standards, this clearly post-"Straw Dogs" and "Willard" tale has an obsessional thematic directness which is unusual for television.

I'm afraid the other poster may be misremembering--I believe they are thinking of Bad Ronald, another ABC TV-movie of this period. Crawlspace, anyway, is about a retired couple who discover a young drifter living in their--surprise!--crawlspace and attempt to "adopt" him to fill a void in their lives. They try to socialize him and include him in their new "family," with tragic results.

I bought a used copy of the book online. I haven't read it since 7th grade, but so far it is just as good as I remember. My recollection is that the movie is entertaining, but not as good as the novel. Arthur Kennedy and Theresa Wright were both excellent, and it was pretty suspenseful for a movie-of-the-week.

Like the reviewer above me, I saw this when I was young and it returns to my thoughts often...it has a certain haunting quality to it that is hard to define. Powerful and evocative and yet very understated. There is an air of reconciliation for the generations here, after the turbulent and impassioned separation of the 1960s, just passed.

No performances stand out in my mind...Matthew Cowles is believable as the small-town heavy, and Arthur Kennedy turns in a memorable performance in the twilight of his career.

It's the eerie and unexplained presence of the young man...almost like a lost child, how the old couple summons him up from the crawlspace and just accept him as their surrogate child, that's always stuck with me and made this movie return to my thoughts again and again, after all of these years.