Customer Reviews

Crawlspace [VHS]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Box office favorite and perennial villian KLAUS KINSKI stars in this horrifying and gruesome thriller as a crazed maniac who is obsessed with traping young women and then slowly torturing them to death.
Karl Guenther (KINSKI) is a conscientious landlord who looks out for his young and attractive tenants. Jessica, the rising young soap opera star, Harriet, a sensuous and vivacious secretary and Sophie, an accomplished pianist who enjoys wild fantasy sex with her boyfriend...all live in Karl's well kept apartments. The only discord is the "tap, tap, tap" sound at night from the crawlspace above their rooms. Karl tells them it's rats, but in reality it is Karl spying on them. One by one the tenants become his victims...each one put to a gruesome test. Only one tenant remains to disclose the diabolical Karl and she enters the crawlspace-she is alone with a madman capable of anything!
Enter CRAWLSPACE...and enter a new dimension of terror!

The other reviews have given away enough of this film.
Just watch it. Kinski has a malevolence that few can match, and he delivers in spades.
When he is finally noticed, the method he uses to despatch an investigator will likely make you check chairs forever after.
It's grotesque, escapist horror delivered by a skilled performer, and an absolutely brilliant villain of the screen.

I'm 26 years old and have seen a lot of movies. I saw Crawlspace on tv one time and, to this day, it remains as one of the scariest movies I've ever seen. No special effects, no computer-generated monsters, just a crazy, spooky old man on a mission.

In every review I've seen of this movie (yes, all TWO of them), it's been compared to "Peeping Tom," which I haven't seen, so I'll be at a slight disadvantage while I review "Crawlspace." The plot has Klaus Kinski (the German actor you might remember from the 1979 remake of "Nosferatu")--looking like Beethoven playing Dracula--as a creepy landlord who only rents apartments out to beautiful women...then systematically kills them. It turns out his father was a Nazi scientist who experimented on Jews during World War II, and the genes begin to show after a pretty college student (Talia Balsam, daughter of Martin?) shows up at the complex.

"Crawlspace" is actually quite impressive given its low budget. Kinski--who obviously did this movie for the paycheck--is the central driving force, as his murdering, makeup-smearing, goose-stepping Nazi keeps things intensely interesting. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast is dense and undefined, and serve only as fodder for the horrible deaths that start up in the last act. If the student/Nazi relationship had been done in more detail, this could have been an interesting take on Stephen King's "Apt Pupil," but alas it doesn't work. But so seldom is the film dull--it's paced quickly and only runs 80 minutes--that you probably won't mind its lack of depth.

Fans of genre horror will most likely appreciate "Crawlspace" more than a casual moviegoer.

I RECENTLY RENTED THIS MOVIE OVER THE WEEKEND, I LOVED IT.
I THOUGHT THAT THE MOVIE WAS CREEPY AND SUSPENSFUL IN A HITCHCOCK SORT OF FASHION. I LOVED THE VILLIAN IN THIS FILM, DESPITE OF FACT THAT HE'S INSANE, BUT BILLIANT. I HAVE TO ADMIT THAT I FEEL PITY FOR HIM(MEANING THAT I UNDERSTAND). IF YOU LIKE CREEPY AND SUSPENSFUL FILMS IN HITCHCOCK STYLE, THAN I WOULD STRONGLY RECOMMEND THIS ONE.

Great movie, barrel of laughs, although I'm not sure that's what Klaus Kinski was going for...