Directed by David Schmoeller
Starring Klaus Kinski, Talia Balsam, Barbara Whinnery, Carole Francis, Tane McClure and Kenneth Robert Shippy
Now we're getting into the good stuff. Crawlspace was yet another film released by Empire Pictures in that almighty year of 1986, and I've got to say that it is without a doubt the best. David Schmoeller was one of Charles Band's loyal directors, and this flick was without a doubt his passion project in the whole Empire/Full Moon library. For starters, he wrote the script himself. Secondly, it's just really different. I've seen enough of this guy's work to know his tone, and Crawlspace is a very strange animal. It's dark, it's gritty, and it has Klaus Kinski diving right in to a truly evil, diabolical role with a vengeance, almost to the point that those making the film put together a plot to kill him for insurance money. And that, my friends, is actually a true story. Google it.
I suppose the other main thing that I need to share about this one is that I don't have any personal background with it. I'd never even HEARD of it before I got my hands on the box set that all of these reviews are coming from. For mysterious reasons, this film was a pretty rare find back in the video store days, and I had the greatest video store in the history of video stores right in my very own hometown. In and out of theaters in something like 30 seconds, it followed the tried-and-true Charles Band formula of "aim for a respectable theatrical run, hook 'em in on video." And that's just what this movie did. More than that, this flick has a truly nasty little edge that's almost nonexistant in the rest of the Band film universe, and it definitely shocked the hell out of me. It's no cinematic masterpiece or anything, but it's effective. With all of that gushing out of the way, let's get to the movie.
Schmoeller's script for this movie follows the "first ten pages" rule to absolute perfection, quickly introducing us to the whole motif that will follow. A woman is wandering around in an apartment complex and finds her way to to an attic where the door locks behind her. Inside is a caged woman, and behind her is Karl Gunther (Kinski), super-creepy landlord who not soon thereafter presses a switch that impales the woman with a knife. Attention had. Right after that, we're clued in that this guy is the son of a former Nazi doctor, and all of what we're about to see is some sort of experiment on his part. Yikes.
The film then spends the following 15 minutes or so introducing us to all of our side characters. The one who stands out as the "final girl" is Lori Bancroft (Talia Balsam), friendly college student who is immediately taken in by Karl after he mystifyingly rejects somebody else. There's also piano player Sophie (the ridiculously hot Tane McClure, who spends her character's first scene cutting the nipples out of her bra), nondescript Harriet (Barbara Whinnery) and gold-digging soap opera actress Jessica Marlow (Carole Francis). All of them are decent enough in their roles, but the this is Kinski's movie all the way, baby. He owns every scene he's in, and whenever he's not on screen you find yourself wanting to watch him more, despite just how despicable he is and how vile his actions are. For an indication of what we're dealing with, the caged woman who I mentioned earlier (who has had her tongue cut out by Karl, no less) writes him a note stating "Please Kill Me," to which he replies "but then I wouldn't have anyone to talk to." Screw you, buddy.
I think the movie has a bit of a weakness in that Karl's motivations are never really spelled out. We see his METHODS plenty of times. The title Crawlspace comes from the fact that he does most of his scouting my sliding around the building's air vents spying on all of the various female tenants, usually in various forms of undress. He has the woman in the cage, and he also kills the dick out of two anciliary characters with plenty of aplomb. But why? There are little bits of narration as Karl gives us bits of his background, about studying what his father did and how he found them appalling yet did them anyway. But I could just be looking too much into it. When the end of the movie comes and this guy starts playing videos of Hitler speeches and putting on the official uniform, amazingly, you buy it. But that's just the magic of Klaus Kinski.
The story definitely operates in starts and stops. There are small bits of the cruelty that Karl displays toward the woman in the cage, which is then usually followed by him shuffling around in the air vents, then an unrelated murder, and then bits of Lori pensively walking around trying to piece things together. It might not be the officially-licensed Lick Ness Monster A-B-C storytelling method, but it's still effective. By the time the ending rolls around, you really, really, REALLY want Karl to get what he has coming to him. Emotion like this can't be bought.
Now for the section where I spend a couple paragraphs summing things up. It's kind of a difficult task with this movie, because it's unapologetically basic. This is the case for almost all Empire and Full Moon movies, and this one is exactly the same. Shoot me if you've heard this one before: it's only something like 75 minutes long. Thus, there's no time for bullshit, but unlike some of the stuff in the earlier Empire movies I've reviewed there is not a single boring moment in Crawlspace. Every minute is spent either being repulsed by Kinski or actually kind of fearing that he might be around somewhere. Call this movie the anti-Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy (/intentional flame baiting comment).
There is also something that I wish to pontificate on (what a great vocabulary word that is) that usually doesn't get much ink here on the ol' blog: the score. Good music can really up the ante for a movie that already has some decent things going for it, and I was really impressed with what composer Pino Donaggio. I found myself humming the menacing tune of this flick a few times after I finished watching it, and it fits the movie's slow-build/fast chase stuff fantastically. And now you see why I don't talk much about musical scores in my reviews. It kind of takes away from the normal nostalgia masturbation and bad jokes. So allow me to conclude this review by stating once again that Tane McClure's nipples are amazing.
*** 1/2 out of ****. Crawlspace is a damn fun time with a really, really good performance from Kinski. And trust me, guys, type "Please Kill Mr. Kinski" into Google and be prepared to be amused.
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