A Must See for Horror Geeks: Klaus Kinski in “Crawlspace”

Being a horror geek means always scraping the bottom of the barrel for some neat stuff. Sometimes the best movies, the creepiest horror comics and the most skin-crawling books come from the bargain bins, the crate of discarded books out back or the worst corners of the scummiest file sharing programs. Horror has always been a kind of trash-art and horror geeks acknowledge and love it for that.

An overlooked gem of the 80’s that we’re going to turn you onto today is “Crawlspace.” This horror flick probably wouldn’t be much without Klaus Kinski’s genuinely creepy performance as the villain, a German landlord and former doctor, the son of a Nazi, who slowly works up the courage to go from practicing euthanasia for his worst-suffering patients, to killing completely healthy people and finally just going on a murder spree.

The movie has its shock moments including Kinski riding through the ducts of his building on a cart and murdering his tenants with booby traps, but the real treat is Kinski’s intellectual approach to the character. Nearly a decade before Silence of the Lambs, Kinski created this grotesque, charming ubermensch villain. The movie itself has its slow parts, but the arty approach and Kinski’s masterful performance ultimately make it something truly special.

The rest of the characters are not without their quirks. We have a vain soap opera star who plays a soap opera star on a soap opera and a caged woman who Kinski keeps around to have someone to talk to, but it is Kinski who makes your skin crawl in this one, delivering an A+ performance in a B+ movie.

About the Author
Matthew Warren blogs on Things Nerds Like and is the owner of the Science Fiction store Sci-Fi-Stuff.com.

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