Crawlspace (1986 film)
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| Directed by | David Schmoeller |
| Produced by | Roberto Bessi |
| Written by | David Schmoeller |
| Starring |
Klaus Kinski Talia Balsam |
| Music by | Pino Donaggio |
| Cinematography | Sergio Salvati |
| Edited by | Bert Glatstein |
| Distributed by | Empire Pictures (1986, original) MGM (2002, DVD) Scream Factory (2013, Blu-ray DVD) |
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Release date
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Running time
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80 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Crawlspace is an American 1986 horror/thriller film starring Klaus Kinski as Karl Guenther, the crazed son of a Nazi doctor, who is obsessed with trapping young women and then slowly torturing them to death. The film is produced by Roberto Bessi, written and directed by David Schmoeller and also stars Talia Balsam.
A young woman walks through the hallways of an apartment building, looking for "Mr. Gunther". She walks into a room in the attic and the door closes and locks behind her. Inside the room, she finds rats in cages, as well as a caged woman (Sally Brown). Karl Gunther (Klaus Kinski) appears and says of the caged woman: "She can't talk. I cut her tongue off." Karl presses a button and a blade is shoved through the woman's back and sticks out of her chest, killing her. Karl pricks his finger with a sharp object, and smears an inscribed bullet with his blood and loads it into a revolver. He points the gun to his head and the gun clicks. He puts the gun down and says: "So be it."
Sometime later, Sophie Fisher (Tané) is in her apartment in the building, which is located in "a big city" somewhere in the USA. A man watches Sophie from her outside window on the ground floor, and Karl is seen also spying on her from behind an air vent. The man crawls through the window and surprises her, but it is only her boyfriend Hank (David Abbott), whom has come to visit her. Hank and Sophie kiss and spend time on her bed as they begin to have sex while Karl continues to watch them.
The next day, a man comes to Karl's door of his apartment where he inquires about a vacant apartment advertised in the local newspaper. Karl takes one look at the man and tells him that it has been rented. But seconds after the man leaves, Lori Bancroft (Talia Balsam) enters the small urban apartment building and when she inquires about the vacant apartment, Karl hospitably takes her to it and shows her around the room. Karl introduces himself as the landlord and superintendent of the building and that the apartment was recently vacated by a young woman who disappeared without paying her rent. Karl explains about the building, the neighborhood and of the monthly rent. As Lori looks around the kitchen, Karl turns on the stove and puts his hand over the blue flame while Lori is not looking. Hiding his pain, Karl asks if she will take the apartment. Lori says yes, which prompts Karl to pull his hand away from the flame and shakes her hand with his other one. Later, Karl is back in his secret room in the attic writing in his diary and says that he is addicted to killing for it makes him feel alive. Martha, the tongueless woman in the cage, gives him a note saying: "Please kill me". Karl tells Martha that he cannot because he would have no one to talk to.
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