This was a film we had been trying to get hold of for ages now simply for the reason that the director was the man responsible for a huge personal favourite Tourist Trap as well as the pretty nifty Puppet Master. I also recalled having watched the trailer of Crawlspace many years ago and been enticed as ever by the wonderful scoring of Pino Donnagio so it was with much anticipation that one ordered the MGM DVD release which just came out paired with The Attic another pretty unknown chiller from the early 80’s.

Instantly Crawlspace reminds one of the typical cheap look that so many 80’s straight to video productions seemed to suffer - Loud, over bright colours, tacky interiors and very average acting. The only aspect of the film that belies its cheap look is the work of Pino Donnagio who creates yet another intriguing and rich background score – not one of his best works by a mile, but still managing to lend an element of class to an otherwise very tacky looking film. The story revolves around a deranged escaped Nazi torturer played very hammily by Klaus Kinski who has somehow managed to settle in what seems like a typically blah suburb in California where he own property and rents out apartments to nubile young women so that he can gawk at them through the special crawlspace he has purpose built. Gawking is not all he is interested in however……his twisted desires very much include torture and murder (Peeping Tom anybody?).

The deranged Dr. Gunther also whiles away his time watching old film footage of his hero Adolf Hitler as well as training his army of pet rats to perform as one of his more intriguing bizarre instruments of terror. Despite Kinski’s commendable efforts at injecting some drama into proceedings the film somehow doesn’t seem to pick up in pace and fails to build towards a gripping climax. Schmoeller fails to display any of the style that he displayed earlier in Tourist Trap and even Puppet Master which are far stronger efforts than this one. Pino Donnagio who has scored so many brilliant soundtracks for Brian De Palma also worked wonders in Tourist Trap continues his partnership with Schmoeller but though this time he isn’t in particularly good form there are still occasional flashes of inspiration during some sequences, especially when he has to inject some urgency or a chase is on. People may consider Donnagio to be just a Herrmann clone as De Palma was considered a Hitchcock clone, but if you are going to be inspired…might as well be by the best!

In Crawlspace, the deranged Kinski keeps a bevy of young nubile beauties as his tenants and turns away men telling them all vacancies are filled. He builds devices of torture and death in his lair upstairs where he also keeps imprisoned in a cage a desperate young woman Martha who he treats like a pet chimpanzee. The rest of the time he spends in his Crawlspace along with his rats, prying into the girls and their private lives and terrorizing them with the incessant clicking sounds that he makes with his metal blade and a steel ball. The film falls well short of expectations and joins the enormous pile of very forgettable 80’s horror fodder – there isn’t a single memorable moment, set piece or sequence and there is also a distinct lack of tension and atmosphere. The gore is also on the tame side with most deaths taking place off screen. On the whole this is a very average, uninspired and unmemorable experience – a major disappointment.