Though it wasn’t a hit at the time, Tourist Trap has since developed a cult following among hardcore horror fans. Following its release, filmmaker David Schmoeller moved onto what was supposed to be his big breakthrough into mainstream Hollywood. 1982’s The Seduction, featuring Morgan Fairchild in her feature film debut, unfortunately received negative reviews and earned three Razzie nominations. Looking to bounce back, Schmoeller turned to Charles Band, who had since formed his production company, Empire Pictures. Schmoeller had a script about a former POW in Vietnam building a homemade prison camp, but Band had other ideas. Band promised he’d get character actor Klaus Kinski to star if Schmoeller changed the script to be about a Nazi. Schmoeller agreed, but nothing could’ve prepared him for how much of a disaster working with Kinski would be. After a very troubled production, Crawlspace was finally released in May of 1986.
%
Rating
Synopsis
Lori Bancroft (Talia Balsam) is looking into a new apartment and meets with the landlord Karl Gunther (Klaus Kinski). After he gives her a tour and talks about the apartment, Lori decides to move in, much to Karl’s delight. Turns out Karl has some dark secrets, as he regularly kidnaps and tortures his female tenants in the attic. He has various crawlspaces and passageways within the building that he uses to spy on and kill his tenants. One day, he’s visited by Josef Steiner (Kenneth Robert Shippy), whose brother was a patient of Gunther’s that he killed. Steiner has been working to try and prove that Gunther was responsible for the deaths of several other patients. Soon, Gunther’s already warped mental state starts deteriorating, as he kills the other tenants and embraces his family’s Nazi roots. What horrors will Lori stumble across as she navigates her way through the crawlspace?
Review
Crawlspace is a film that works despite its production problems, most of them revolving around Klaus Kinski. According to David Schmoeller, Kinski had started six fistfights with the crew after only three days of filming. It got to the point where the Italian producers were even considering killing Kinski for the insurance money. All of this and more is detailed in Schmoeller’s 1999 mini-doc Please Kill Mr. Kinski, which I highly recommend watching. That said, while it’s easy to villainize Kinski for being so troublesome on set, he still delivers a great performance. Even when he’s trying to act normal and charming, he comes off creepy and menacing, like something’s wrong with him. His performance is almost on par with Jack Nicholson’s performance in The Shining, though not quite as off-the-wall. Still, Kinski manages to be captivating even when there isn’t much happening on screen.
Talia Balsam, as our protagonist, fills her role pretty well, coming off as fairly normal and somewhat demure. Her shyness perfectly contrasts with Kinski’s creepiness, and she’s easy to root for when things start going crazy. The other female tenants, played by Barbara Whinnery, Carole Francis, and Tane McClure work well together but aren’t very memorable. It’s easy to side with Kenneth Robert Shippy as Josef Steiner given his situation, but his subplot doesn’t go anywhere. Fans of Charles Band will recognize the set as being the same apartment set used for John Carl Buechler’s Troll. In terms of Schmoeller’s direction, it’s not as atmospheric as Tourist Trap, but there are some effectively foreboding moments. At 80 minutes, the film gets in and out fairly quickly, and it does its job without overstaying its welcome. Overall, Crawlspace is an effective horror/thriller that succeeds despite its troublesome, though talented, star.
Buy Crawlspace from Amazon: https://amzn.to/3wIHPDo
