{"id":2680,"date":"2024-08-22T15:46:30","date_gmt":"2024-08-22T15:46:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2680"},"modified":"2024-10-14T11:23:10","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T15:23:10","slug":"crawlspace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/22\/crawlspace\/","title":{"rendered":"Crawlspace"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Crawlspace <\/strong>(1986)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Empire Pictures\/Horror-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 81 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, violence, nudity, sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: David Schmoeller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: David Schmoeller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Pino Donaggio\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Sergio Salvati\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 21, 1986 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Klaus Kinski, Talia Balsam, Barbara Whinnery, Carol Francis, Tane, Sally Brown, Kenneth Robert Shippey, Jack Heller, David Abbott, David Schmoeller.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0How did I miss this twisted little oddity? It\u2019s not like I never heard of Crawlspace<\/strong> until now. I used to see the box sitting on the video store shelf all the time and I\u2019m sure that it\u2019s been shown on late night cable TV countless times. Its official theatrical release date is May \u201986, but I could have sworn that it played in Philadelphia-area theaters later than that (early \u201987 perhaps).<\/p>\n

\u00a0The point is I just never bothered with Crawlspace<\/strong> until recently. I have to say that it\u2019s not half bad. The highlight, of course, is a delightfully campy performance by the late Klaus Kinski (Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Nosferatu the Vampyre) as the sadistic, voyeuristic landlord. Let me tell you, this creepy little German guy has some peculiar ways of spending his free time. You won\u2019t believe what he keeps hidden in the attic. He certainly prefers to keep this a secret as (a) he has the place booby trapped and (b) makes quick work of a nosy tenant he discovers snooping around in the movie\u2019s opening scene.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The demise of the aforementioned nosy tenant leaves a vacancy at the apartment building owned by Karl Guenther (Kinski). I guess nobody finds it strange that he rents only to young women. College student Lori Bancroft (Balsam, The Kindred) responds to the ad and moves in. The other tenants include soap opera actress Jessica (Francis, Fingers), personable secretary Harriet (Whinnery, Hot to Trot) and sexually promiscuous pianist Sophie (Tane, Legally Blonde). Karl watches out for them \u2026. perhaps a bit more than he should. He hides in the crawlspace above their rooms and spies on them through the air vents. He claims that it\u2019s only rats when they complain about the tapping sounds they hear at night. He even keeps a few rats on hand. Naturally, the tenants start meeting gruesome ends at the hands of Karl.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Meanwhile, a strangely-acting man (Shippey) starts coming around and asking questions about Karl. I suppose it\u2019s not giving away too much to tell you that he\u2019s a Nazi hunter and very interested in Karl\u2019s family history. He\u2019s also interested in Karl\u2019s former profession as a medical doctor. I\u2019ll say no more about this part of the story. As for what\u2019s going on in his attic, I choose to remain silent on that as well. What I can tell you is that the landlord is a real freak and Lori would do well to steer clear of him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Overall, Crawlspace<\/strong> isn\u2019t too bad for a low budget horror flick from Empire Pictures, the studio behind such \u201cclassics\u201d as Ghoulies I & II, Re-Animator, Troll, Eliminators, TerrorVision, From Beyond and Rawhead Rex. I have to give them credit, they sure knew how to economize when it came to filmmaking. If the apartment building in Crawlspace<\/strong> seems familiar, that\u2019s because they reused the sets from Troll. Spotting details like this constitutes one of the many joys of watching cheap exploitation flicks.<\/p>\n

\u00a0All I can say is that I\u2019m glad I finally watched Crawlspace<\/strong>. It\u2019s a nifty if unexceptional horror-thriller that allows Kinski to do what he does best. Nothing wrong with that.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crawlspace (1986)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Empire Pictures\/Horror-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 81 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, violence, nudity, sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: David Schmoeller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: David Schmoeller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Pino Donaggio\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Sergio Salvati\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 21, 1986 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Klaus Kinski, Talia Balsam, Barbara Whinnery, Carol Francis, Tane, Sally Brown, Kenneth Robert Shippey, Jack Heller, David Abbott, David Schmoeller.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Crawlspace-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2680"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3608,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2680\/revisions\/3608"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}