Crawlspace (1986)

Dir: David Schmoeller

Empire Pictures funded nonsense with Klaus Kinski as a mad Nazi landlord who spends his time crawling through the air vents of his building, spying on female residents, beheading rats, applying lady make-up, watching Hitler rallies on a projector, playing Russian roulette and killing people indiscriminately. In fairness, Kinski is a blast in this and his creepiness carries the otherwise abysmal movie single-handedly. The screenplay is total balls, although I did learn a lot about women from it. Did you know that, when alone, women will cut peepholes out of their bras in front of the mirrors and perform studio quality renditions of bad 80s ballads on the piano? Or that, when in groups, women will hold slumber parties in which they all drink tequila milkshakes, giggle about boys and jump up onto tables shrieking when they see a rat on the floor? Educational value aside though, the film bites. A lot of it feels improvised and even at 80 minutes, it's one Hell of a slog. Although it's almost redeemed by a lunatic scene in which the sexagenerian Kinski, dressed in an old man's jumper and full face make-up, finds a metal sheet on wheels and propels himself through the air vents as though bodyboarding, for what seems like about 10 minutes. A wonderfully inventive and unintentionally hilarious moment. EL BOMBA!