**SPOILERS** With his old man, a Nazi concentration camp doctor, being executed after the war for crimes against humanity junior or Doctor Karl Gunther(Klaus Kinski), now in his fifties, had become fascinated with the German Third Reich. Watching in his attic hours of newsreels of Hitler's Germany at the zenith of it's power when it was both both feared and envied all over the world. Gunther is also fascinated with young women whom he rents out apartments in his rooming house and loves to watch them in all states of dress and undress. From the safety of the crawlspace that leads from his dumpy attic apartment throughout all the apartments in his building.
You can see right away that actor Klaus Kinski is just itching to break out of his restrained role as the meek and soft spoken Dr. Gunther. As he's given a chance later in the movie by director David Schmoeller, who does an Alfred Hitchcock cameo early in the film. When Kinski finally strut his stuff he leaves absolutely nothing to chance. Going so out of his skull that for a moment you think that he's not really acting at all but just being his own wild crazy and creepy self.
Collecting body parts of his many victims Gunther also keeps this woman mute Martha White(Sally Brown), who's tongue he cut out, in a cage in his attic. Just to have someone to talk to and at the same time not give him any arguments over what he's talking about. Gunther also has a number of young women living in his building whom he constantly spies on and whenever they have their boyfriends come up to see and have sex with them. Gunther end up not only murdering the gentlemen but also cutting out some of their body parts, two eyes and a ring finger, and putting them in jars of alcohol as souvenirs.
The movie takes a turn for the worst, for crazy Karl, when his past finally catches with him in the person of young Josef Steiner, Kenneth Robert Shippy, who's been tracking him down for over three years. It turns out that during his five year tenure as the top surgeon at the National Hospital in Buenos Aires Argentina 67 patients who were under his care died mysteriously, one of them being Josef Steiner's brother.
Gunther has this obsession with death that he picked up from reading his late fathers lurid writings about concentration camp life. That soon has him going completely wacko with Gunther constantly trying to blow his brains out,by playing Russian Roulette. As well as trying to murder, with much success, his female tenants. Later by letting rats loose all over the apartment building Gunthers has his tenants, all four of them, go into hysterics. At the same time he murderously finishes most of them off for being, what I think, late with the rent.
Leaving no stone, or body, unturned Gunther making sure that nobody can finger him as the killer has him also knock off, with a poison arrow, Steiner when he got too close to the truth about his murdered brother. That as well as the other 66 victims that Gunther left behind, at the National Hospital, back in Argentina. With only one of his tenants still alive the plucky Lori Bancroft, Talia Balsam, Gunther chases her all throughout the crawlspace with an army of hungry rats. Only in the end to get himself blasted by Lori with the last remaining bullet of his .44 magnum that he played Russian Roulette with himself.
This is an all star Klaus Kinski movie with him being the only reason to really watch it. Going from hot to cold as well as being dressed in normal mens clothes or in drag, with lipstick smeared all over his face. Kinski is the glue that keeps the movie together and makes it both weird and entertaining at the same time. The violence in the film "Crawlspace" was more or less standard in movies like itself but its star, the late and off-the-wall Klaus Kinski, gave what amounted to a unique one of a kind performance. That of an out of control nut-job who goes off the deep deep end in an utterly mind boggling performance that only the great Kinski could, and did, successfully pull off.
You can see right away that actor Klaus Kinski is just itching to break out of his restrained role as the meek and soft spoken Dr. Gunther. As he's given a chance later in the movie by director David Schmoeller, who does an Alfred Hitchcock cameo early in the film. When Kinski finally strut his stuff he leaves absolutely nothing to chance. Going so out of his skull that for a moment you think that he's not really acting at all but just being his own wild crazy and creepy self.
Collecting body parts of his many victims Gunther also keeps this woman mute Martha White(Sally Brown), who's tongue he cut out, in a cage in his attic. Just to have someone to talk to and at the same time not give him any arguments over what he's talking about. Gunther also has a number of young women living in his building whom he constantly spies on and whenever they have their boyfriends come up to see and have sex with them. Gunther end up not only murdering the gentlemen but also cutting out some of their body parts, two eyes and a ring finger, and putting them in jars of alcohol as souvenirs.
The movie takes a turn for the worst, for crazy Karl, when his past finally catches with him in the person of young Josef Steiner, Kenneth Robert Shippy, who's been tracking him down for over three years. It turns out that during his five year tenure as the top surgeon at the National Hospital in Buenos Aires Argentina 67 patients who were under his care died mysteriously, one of them being Josef Steiner's brother.
Gunther has this obsession with death that he picked up from reading his late fathers lurid writings about concentration camp life. That soon has him going completely wacko with Gunther constantly trying to blow his brains out,by playing Russian Roulette. As well as trying to murder, with much success, his female tenants. Later by letting rats loose all over the apartment building Gunthers has his tenants, all four of them, go into hysterics. At the same time he murderously finishes most of them off for being, what I think, late with the rent.
Leaving no stone, or body, unturned Gunther making sure that nobody can finger him as the killer has him also knock off, with a poison arrow, Steiner when he got too close to the truth about his murdered brother. That as well as the other 66 victims that Gunther left behind, at the National Hospital, back in Argentina. With only one of his tenants still alive the plucky Lori Bancroft, Talia Balsam, Gunther chases her all throughout the crawlspace with an army of hungry rats. Only in the end to get himself blasted by Lori with the last remaining bullet of his .44 magnum that he played Russian Roulette with himself.
This is an all star Klaus Kinski movie with him being the only reason to really watch it. Going from hot to cold as well as being dressed in normal mens clothes or in drag, with lipstick smeared all over his face. Kinski is the glue that keeps the movie together and makes it both weird and entertaining at the same time. The violence in the film "Crawlspace" was more or less standard in movies like itself but its star, the late and off-the-wall Klaus Kinski, gave what amounted to a unique one of a kind performance. That of an out of control nut-job who goes off the deep deep end in an utterly mind boggling performance that only the great Kinski could, and did, successfully pull off.