Crawlspace

CRAWLSPACE (aka THE ATTIC) is a remake of an obscure 1980s thriller starring Klaus Kinski as a psycho living in an attic and terrorising the residents in the home below. In this version, Steven Weber (THE SHINING miniseries) is the psycho, a guy who definitely doesn't believe in traditional family values.

You know what? This turns out to be a fun, offbeat little movie that has much in common with other remakes like that of THE STEPFATHER, but it might well be the best of the recent crop. The reason for its success is a tight, focused script which sees the running time fly by, combined with some nasty little death scenes which go for creativity throughout. If ever you wanted to watch somebody getting killed - realistically - with a vacuum cleaner, then this is the film.

The worst thing about the story is, as usual, the characters, who aside from Weber's psycho are so bland that you'll be hoping he gets on with the job of bumping them off one by one. Again, the acting is nothing to write home about, with Weber (who looks like Andrew Lincoln in THE WALKING DEAD) convincing as the bad guy and that's about it. Still, I think CRAWLSPACE is a hoot: a tight little home invasion horror with plenty of gore to recommend it.

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.

In "Crawlspace," Aunt Becky and the guy from "Weekend at Bernie's" move their family into their dream house, only to discover that two children previously drowned in the pool. Meanwhile, Brian from "Wings" is living undetected in their attic, raising questions about his waste disposal methods, which remain a mystery to this reviewer. Surprisingly, they never hear him moving around.

The movie fails to deliver genuine scares or thrills. The most shocking aspect is what the brother does to the babysitter, an act that would never be acceptable today. The film leans more towards a thriller than a horror genre and overall, it's pretty lame.

However, Steven Weber's scenes are a highlight, and the gruesome kills, especially the vacuum cleaner kill, make it somewhat worth watching. Despite these moments, the movie barely scratches the surface of what it could have been.

Rating: 5/10

Final Thoughts: While "Crawlspace" has a few redeeming qualities, it's ultimately a forgettable thriller. Watch it for Steven Weber and the occasional gruesome kill, but don't expect much more.

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?

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.