The Attic/ Crawlspace (1980) 6/10

I really love the double feature dvds that come out from anchor bay and midnight movies. Nothing better then two flicks for the price of one, especially when they're supposed to be two under appreciated gems. The Attic/ Crawlspace was one such release and in the case, i have to disagree.

The Attic is about a middle aged woman with an over bearing handicapped father that fantasizes about killing him. Crawlspace, staring Klaus Kinski, is about a creepy old man with a murderous past who runs an apartment building. There he spies on his tenants, all beautiful women.

So let me begin by saying that The Attic was crappy. Very slow moving with cheesy acting, mediocre direction and a predictable script. This one's a real snoozer. Crawlspace on the other hand was at least interesting. I'm all for atypical genre pictures and Crawlspace is pretty close to that. Horror flicks about murderous old guys are a dime a dozen but the voyeuristic old guy movie? Not quite as plentiful. Klaus plays the creepy old guy part very well and there's even a couple of decent gore scenes. That being said the film never really kicks into high gear. It stays in low gear throughout most of the film, the tension only intensifying at the very end and by then I didn't really care too much. The characters, besides Klaus, are poorly acted and poorly written. The film falls into many of the common tropes of the 80s horror flick and its really only Klaus who tries to pull it out.

So, The Attic was crap and Crawlspace tries to be unique but ultimately fails. Its still worth checking out for die hard horror fans but only for those who have already seen all the great horror films and are trying to dig a bit deeper and don't mind rough gems. On a side note, for you Neurosis fans out there, the band used samples from Crawlspace all over their Enemy of the Sun record. So i guess Crawlspace has at least one admirer.

Nudity-mild

Gore-mild

Overall - 6/10