Crawlspace is a psychological horror offering which stars
two things humans find
naturally creepy: rats and Klaus Kinski. Kinski runs an apartment house
for women. He was formerly a physician and, before that, son of a
Nazi surgeon war criminal, ala Mengele. His specialty is killing -- mercy killing at
first, until he becomes addicted to murder. The title comes from the fact that
his workshop, where he keeps a woman whose tongue he has cut out, is
connected to a crawl space where he can spy into all of the
apartments through ventilator grates. As the film opens, one of his
tenants discovers his workshop, so he dispatches her and puts out
the "apartment for rent" sign. Student Talia Balsam takes the room,
meets the other tenants, but becomes suspicious of the place and the
landlord, leading to the final confrontation.
Flesh: FAIL. There were five attractive young women in the cast,
but only one showed skin, and not much at that.
Gore: FAIL. Nearly everyone is killed, but mostly off camera.
Yes, there is some suspense, but Klaus Kinski and a bunch of rats,
while forming a strong enough basis for a nightmare,
don't add up to a whole motion picture.
If you are not familiar with our grading system, you need to
read the
explanation, because the grading is not linear. For example, by
our definition, a
C is solid and a C+ is a VERY good movie. There are very few Bs
and As. Based on our descriptive system, this film is a:
