This film is a mixed bag,horror, psychological thriller, peeping tom, and the son of a nazi officer, who was a doctor that enjoyed holding the balance of life or death of his patients in his hands, often choosing death. He now is the landlord of a building renting units out to women and psychologically torturing them. He comes off as a soft spoken recluse, but you learn very early in the film of his dark side, he builds booby traps and has even kept one of the female tenants in a cage as like a pet. He must have moments of clarity as he enters a room on three occasions to play Russian roulette after killing someone else, and always uttering "so be it " with each empty chamber to continue his killing spree. The landlord is played by the always entertaining Klaus Kinski as Dr Karl Gunther a tortured man that your unsure whether he's psychotic or just a bad hobby, at one point he is given a photo of himself as a HJ cadet and begins to become emotional to the point of actual tears , not a trait with psychotics. I had never heard of this picture until last year. I stumbled across the trailer and decided I needed to find it when I saw Kinski standing in an attic as a Hitler video played in the background while he wore his dad's S. S hat giving a salute with woman's make up smeared on his face making him look a little like Batman's joker. It was an enjoyable watch, decent in effect imaginative kills, good back story to Gunther's character and the noir style narrative helps set the tone 4/5.
Review of Crawlspace
