By Todd Garbarini

I have read many accounts about film directors who sought out specific actors or actresses to appear in their newest film project, only to find that the individual was extraordinarily difficult to work with. This can range from asking for their trailer to be lavished with loads of swag, to more seemingly ludicrous demands, including, but not limited to, having the cast and crew speak to them only through an intermediary, or refusing to act opposite certain co-stars.

Actor Marlon Brando notoriously gave director Francis Ford Coppola such a run for his money on the set of Apocalypse Now (1979) that one wonders why Mr. Coppola hired him in the first place. Having refused the Academy Award bestowed upon him in 1973 for the Best Actor role of Don Vito Corleone in Mr. Coppola’s The Godfather (1972), a film which brought Mr. Brando out of the cinematic doldrums and put Mr. Coppola on the map, Mr. Brando was not only paid three million dollars for three weeks’ worth of work, but failed to know his lines and never read the story upon which Apocalypse Now was based, forcing his director to scramble and improvise. This is nothing compared to the rumored indignities he lavished upon director Frank Oz on the set of The Score (2001) when he would only speak to him through Robert De Niro and engage in other outlandish behavior too ludicrous to recount here.

David Schmoeller, the director of one of my favorite thrillers, Tourist Trap (1979), found himself in a similar plight when he was contracted by producer Charles Band to write an original script based on his sold and unproduced screenplay called The Peeper. The idea was to fit the story into the remaining sets of ventilation ducts and corridors that were used for Mr. Band's just-completed outing, Troll. In an astute maneuver harkening back to Roger Corman’s maverick days of guerrilla filmmaking, Mr. Schmoeller fashioned a tale of a Josef Mengele-style Nazi doctor’s son named Karl Gunther, once a respectable physician who resorted to euthanasia of many hospital patients as a way of ending their suffering and is now possessed by a God complex. He ensnares attractive young women in his lair and slowly tortures them to death. The film’s title, Crawlspace, may sound familiar as it has been used numerous times by films made over the past fifty years. This movie, which was produced on sets in Italy during October and November of 1985 and released in Los Angeles on Friday, September 26, 1986, stars the inimitable Klaus Kinski, whose reputation as a difficult actor who was prone to bouts of uncontrollable rage and fury with the crew members.

Gunther is now the owner and super of an apartment building that he only rents to attractive young women. He has access to adjacent rooms through the crawlspace where he spies on them. Gunther is two-sided: congenial and pleasant to his future victims, but also ruthless and self-loathing over his desire to torture them. He plays a Deer Hunter-style of Russian Roulette with a single round in a six-chamber pistol that he presses to his forehead in the hopes of ending this tortuous existence. His latest tenant is Lori Bancroft (Talia Balsam), a young woman who inadvertently finds herself in a maze of booby traps set to prevent her from leaving the premises while in Gunther’s clutches, and her performance just is not up to snuff with the best scream queen contemporaries of the time, such as Jamie Lee Curtis, Heather Langenkamp, or Linnea Quigley. Carol Francis, who appeared opposite Tisa Farrow in James Toback’s Fingers (1978), appears in a silly role, and Tane McClure appears in a rape fantasy sex scene that recalls Deborah Burgess’s “attack” in Richard Ciupka’s Curtains (1983). Gunther is approached by the brother of one of his victims and dispatches with him in the only male-oriented murder in the film. The film runs a mere 80 minutes, but it is a great time capsule of a film that accurately depicts the mid-1980s through the hairstyles and wardrobe choices.

There is not much here in the way of suspense, certainly not on the order of the grimy terror that plagued the unwitting women in Tourist Trap. However, like that film, Crawlspace benefits from a Pino Donaggio-composed score.

Crawlspace made its home video debut on VHS and Beta in 1988 on Lightning Video. MGM released it on DVD in 2002 on a double feature with the 1980 Carrie Snodgress film The Attic. Scream Factory released a now out-of-print Blu-ray in 2013 with some extras. Kino Lorber has now secured the rights and has made the film available on Blu-ray with the following extras:

The first audio commentary is from director Schmoeller. It is ported over from the Scream Factory edition, and he discusses the origins of the film, the history of making it, the cast members involved and how difficult it was working with Mr. Kinski, including the efforts that were made to replace him, which ultimately failed.

The second audio commentary is new and exclusive to this Blu-ray and is worth the price of the purchase alone. Film historian John Harrison speaks eloquently and with a great deal of knowledge regarding the film and the cast members. He also references other works, including Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960). Even if you are not a fan of Crawlspace, I would recommend getting this Blu-ray just to listen to this commentary as it is a wonderful journey through cinematic knowledge.

Interview with Makeup FX Artist John Vulich runs 8:33 and is ported over from the Scream Factory edition wherein he confirms the unorthodox means necessary to placate and work with the film’s leading man.

Please Kill Mr. Kinski runs 9:05 and is ported over from the Scream Factory edition. It details the director’s frustrations working with Mr. Kinski. Alternately funny yet bewildering, it makes one wonder why anyone would hire the man.

Rounding out the extras are the requisite theatrical trailer and the television commercials for the film.

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