Dr. Karl Gunther runs a boardinghouse for women and prides himself on keeping it immaculate. Unfortunately for the residents, he also enjoys spying on them through the crawl spaces within the building.

It’s no secret that I absolutely love 80’s Horror films, it was such a great decade for our beloved genre. I’m still discovering films from that time that I haven’t watched which brings me to “Crawlspace”, a feature that I had no idea about until quite recently when I read about it in an under-rated list of movies.

As soon as I read that plot outline I searched high and low for it, once I managed to purchase myself a copy I as seriously excited to watch it. If you still don’t get that excitement about discovering a new Horror film then I think you might have something wrong with you and you need to sort it out.

Klaus Kinski plays our villain and he does it brilliantly, he plays the creepy role so well, to the point that he can start to make your skin crawl as the film goes on. Though I must admit I was pleasantry surprised to see how much character depth he was given, I never expected that from a film like this.

The rest of the cast play their parts brilliantly, though the big kudos must go to writer and director David Schmoeller, he did an amazing job and reportedly had a lot to put up with whilst making the film. He wrote a great script that had so many different levels to it than I’m sure anyone was expecting to see.

“Crawlspace” is such a fun flick that I know for sure I will watch again and again. I’m glad I have finally discovered it and I hope that if you haven’t heard of it then you’ll go hunt it down too.

If you want to see the “Crawlspace” trailer then just click on the video below:

Miscellaneous facts about the film:

David Schmoeller had a lot of trouble directing Klaus Kinski. For example, Kinski refused to listen to basic commands such as “action” and “cut”.

David Schmoeller later made a short film about his problems with Klaus Kinski called Please Kill Mr. Kinski (1999).

According to Schmoeller, Kinski started six fistfights during the first three days of filming.

Director David Schmoeller and producer Roberto Bessi wanted to fire Kinski, due to his impossible behaviour on set, but were stopped from doing so by Empire Pictures, since Kinski’s name would attract viewers.

Kinski was apparently very unhappy with the wardrobe that had been selected for his character, buying a whole new set of clothes and charging the costs to the film production. Afterwards, he kept the clothes for himself anyway.

During filming, as Klaus Kinski became more and more difficult to deal with, director David Schmoeller noticed Kinski had a crush on one of the young female actresses and would always be polite and on his best behavior while she was on the set. Towards the end of filming, Schmoeller asked the actress to remain on the set as often as possible so Kinski would be more cooperative and the film could wrap sooner

Sets are reused from Troll (1986).

Film debut of Tane McClure.

The protagonist was an MIA survivor of the Vietnam war in the first draft of the script.