Sherry Buchanan | Through the Shattered Lens

Before moving into a new place, always do a little research.

That would seem to be the main lesson that one can take from the 1986 horror film, Crawlspace. As the film begins, Lori Bancroft (Talia Balsam) thinks that she’s found the perfect little apartment. It’s clean. It’s roomy but cozy. It’s got space for all of her stuff. It’s perfect for hosting friends. You can bring a date back to the place without feeling embarrassed. The apartment even comes with a charmingly eccentric landlord, an older German gentleman named Karl Gunther. Gunther is played by Klaus Kinksi and….

Wait …. he’s played by who?

Klaus Kinski? You mean the infamously difficult actor who appeared in not only a countless number of horror films and spaghetti westerns but also Doctor Zhivago? Would this be the same Klaus Kinski who was briefly Werner Herzog’s muse? That Klaus Kinski?

Uh-oh. That’s not good.

It soon turns out that Gunther is not quite the friendly man that he pretends to be. Gunther’s got some issues. For instance, he spends a lot of time intentionally burning his hand and then smiling afterwards. And there’s his habit of playing Russian Roulette. Throughout the film, we see him sitting at a table and putting one bullet in a gun, just so he can then point it at his head and take his chances.

Gunther also has a thing for ventilation shafts. He loves to crawl around in them, specifically so he can spy on his tenants. When we first meet him, he’s obsessed with Sophie (Tane McClure) but he soon turns his attention to Lori. Often, he’ll release rats into a tenant’s apartment. When Lori merely laughs at the rat as opposed to screaming in fear, Gunther is impressed.

Of course, Karl Gunther wasn’t always a landlord. He used to be quite a respectable doctor. Of course, then all of his patients started dying and Gunther’s career went downhill. Gunther, of course, claims that he only murdered his patients because they were in pain and suffering. However, it could be more likely that his actions had something more to do with the fact that Gunther’s father was a Nazi war criminal, a doctor who justified his crimes with the same excuses as Gunther.

If all that’s not enough to convince you that Gunther’s got some issues, you should just take a look in the attic. That’s where Gunther spends most of his time, writing in his journals. It’s also where he keeps jars that are full of body parts. One jar has a tongue in it. A pair of eyes float in the other. There’s a finger in another. The attic is also where Gunther keeps one of his previous tenants in a cage. Gunther says that he likes to talk to her, despite the fact that he long ago removed her tongue….

Plot-wise, Crawlspace is pretty much your standard low-budget 80s horror film. There’s not much here that could really be called surprising but director David Schmoeller does find some creative ways to film all of the expected mayhem and the frequent shots of Kinski crawling through the ventilation shafts are genuinely creepy. Kinski, giving a performance that’s even more unhinged than usual, is the best thing about the film and the main reason to see it. By making Karl Gunther the self-loathing son of a war criminal, Schmoeller and Kinski bring an interesting subtext to the film. Gunther is more than just a slasher movie villain. Instead, he’s the embodiment of Hitler’s hateful legacy.

As I mentioned at the start of this review, Klaus Kinski was a legendary for being difficult. Years after both the release of Crawlspace and Kinski’s own death, director David Schmoeller released a 9-minute documentary about the experience of making a film with Kinski. The title of that film: “Please kill, Mr. Kinski.” Apparently, this was a request that several members of the crew made to Schmoeller over the course of filming. (Interestingly enough, Werner Herzog would make his own Klaus Kinski documentary — My Best Fiend — in which he mentioned that, during the shooting of Fitzcarraldo in Brazil, a native chief offered to have Kinski killed.) Please Kill, Mr. Kinski is a fascinating look at not only low-budget exploitation filmmaking but also what it’s like to have to work with a talented monster. As of this writing, it can be viewed on YouTube.

Okay, tell me if this sounds familiar.

There’s a beachside resort town, one whose survival is pretty much dependent upon tourists and big business. If you give the tourists a reason to not show up, the town dies. If you give big business a reason to build their factories and their underground tunnels somewhere else, the town dies.

Unfortunately, something bad is happening in this little town. People are going in the water and they’re never returning. It appears that they’re being killed by some sort of giant sea monster, even though the authorities swear that it’s simply impossible. The town’s leaders are putting pressure on the sheriff to cover up the crimes. A scientist shows up and thinks that everyone he meets is an idiot.

It’s not safe to go in the water but people keep doing it!

Now, you may be thinking that it sounds like I’m describing the plot of Jaws but actually, I’m talking about an Italian film called Tentacles. Released in 1977, Tentacles was one of the many films that was directly inspired by the success of Spielberg’s film. Jaws was such a phenomenal success that it was ripped off by filmmakers across the world. That said, of all the people ripping off Spielberg’s film, the Italians brought an undeniable and frequently shameless flair to the Jaws knockoffs.

Tentacles is a bit different from other Italian Jaws films in that, this time, the threat does not come from a shark. Instead, it comes from a giant octopus! That’s actually a pretty good twist because, in real life, an octopus is actually more dangerous than a shark. Not only are they bigger and considerably smarter than most sharks but if they get enough of their eight arms around you, they can literally squeeze you to death! I mean …. agck! Say what you will about sharks, I imagine getting eaten by one would suck but at least it wouldn’t take long to die. Whereas if an octopus gets you, you would actually be aware of it squeezing you to death and oh my God, I’m never getting in the water.

Anyway, in Tentacles, the octopus is snatching babies off of piers and sailors off of boats and it’s using its octopus powers to rip their skin from their bones. It also attack scuba divers by firing ink at them. The sheriff (Claude Akins) says that it’s nothing to worry about but Ned Turner (John Huston), a hard-boiled reporter, thinks that there’s a story here. Ned’s in town visiting his sister (Shelley Winters). She has a ten year-old son who enjoys sailing. Uh-oh….

Henry Fonda shows up for a few very brief scenes, playing the head of a company that built the underwater tunnel that somehow mutated the octopus. Fonda looks incredibly frail in his scenes (and apparently, he filmed his part while recovering from heart surgery) but his performance in Tentacles still isn’t as cringe-inducing as his performance in The Swarm.

Also showing up is a marine biologist named Will Gleason (Bo Hokpkins). Fortunately, Gleason owns two killer whales so, after the octopus kills his wife, Gleason sends out the orcas to track it down. Before doing so, he gives them a pep talk. Apparently, killer whales respond to positive reinforcement.

Tentacles is unique in that it’s an Italian production that managed to rope in a few well-known American actors. It’s an odd film to watch because, on the one hand, the film is full of risible dialogue and it’s painfully slow whenever the octopus isn’t attacking anyone and no one really seems to be that invested in any of their characters. (When the octopus kills a baby, the actress playing the baby’s mother underacts to such an extent that the scene becomes almost surreal.) This isn’t like Jaws, where you actually care about Brody, Quint, Hooper, and the Kintner boy. On the other hand, the octopus itself is actually kind of frightening so, on that very basic level, the film works.

In the end, Tentacles is one of the lesser Jaws rip-offs but you’ll never forget that octopus.