CRAWLSPACE (1986)

'CRAWLSPACE': A CHIP OFF THE CRUEL BLOCK

Philadelphia Daily News (PA) - June 9, 1986

Author: JOE BALTAKE, Daily News Film Critic

"Crawlspace." A thriller starring Klaus Kinski. Written and directed by David Schmoeller. Photographed by Sergio Salvato. Edited by Bert Glastein. Music by Pino Donaggio. Running time: 77 minutes. An Empire release. In area theaters.

'You have to learn how to laugh, Martha," mad Dr. Karl Gunther tells his cowering caged prisoner, whose tongue he has extracted. "It makes getting through life a lot easier."

If only Dr. Gunther's methods of treatment were as comforting as his
bedside manner. Once attracted to pain and the cure of it, Gunther now delights in creating it. "I am addicted to killing," he writes in his daily journal. These words are spoken in voiceover in English but are actually written - in German!

The son of a Nazi, Gunther studied and practiced medicine in Argentina, where his parents took refuge and where Gunther obviously picked up his father's penchant for inflicting pain and suffering on others.

Now, he spends most of his time, alone, thinking up assorted tortures - er, treatments - for the nymphomaniacs who live in the apartment building that he owns. For diversion - and perhaps incentive - he regularly slithers through the building's crawlspace, spying on his tenants and their various sexmates.

I don't know about you, but there's something about a horror -comedy about the activities of a Neo-Nazi that makes me quite ill. Enough already.

Poor Klaus Kinski. As the mad doctor, he's perfect, afflicted with the kind of face that makes him suitable only for horror comedies or Werner Herzog movies - which, more often than not, are one and the same.

Parental guide: Rated R for gore.