Fou à tuer

A minimalist slasher set in a single house, whose landlord is the deranged son of a Nazi surgeon who stalks and murders his female tenants. They could not have chosen a more suitable actor for the lead role than Klaus Kinski. As usual, filming with him was hell for the entire crew (see the short documentary Please Kill Mr. Kinski). Kinski didn't like being directed, he refused to say lines he didn't like, which sometimes interfered with the clarity of the dialogue. He liked to direct himself. In fact, he considered himself the most important part of all his films. And in this case, it really is his one man show. If it weren't for his presence, you'd be yawning yourself to death. Most of the film is practically nothing. Kinski, however, manages to uncomfortably hypnotize the audience with his creepy gaze while simply crawling through ventilation shafts or writing a diary, which is his focus in most of the film (although the story is told mostly from his character's point of view, most of the murders end up occurring off-screen). Fulci's cinematographer Sergio Salvati and De Palma's favorite composer Pino Donaggio also help keep the audience's attention. The film was shot in Italy and much of the crew was Italian. This makes Crawlspace a bit like a giallo film in terms of form. (22/06/2017)